


The storm in the very small cup (cake)

by Dogsmadeofcheese



Category: Psych
Genre: Anal Sex, Awkward Romance, Case Fic, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Idiots in Love, M/M, Oral Sex, Romantic Comedy, Smut, Sorting through a bunch of emotions, Wish me luck, also, also I don’t usually write case fics so we’ll see how this goes, but only perpetrated by minor characters and its nothing too crazy, honestly they are a mess, lassie has so many self esteem issues, probably, shawn is an idiot, slight homophobic attitudes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:01:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 38,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21600430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogsmadeofcheese/pseuds/Dogsmadeofcheese
Summary: It's a typical day in Santa Barbra. Shawn Spencer is on the case, Carlton Lassiter is wondering how he let this happen again and Burton Guster is just hoping they get paid this time.
Relationships: Burton "Gus" Guster & Shawn Spencer, Carlton Lassiter/Shawn Spencer
Comments: 47
Kudos: 161





	1. Cathrine Zeta-Jones has the perfect bone structure for taffy

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy my self indulgent Psych Fic in the year of our lord 2019

“- So the sign _did_ technically say take one _but_ it didn’t indicate _which_ oneor _what_ one was for the taking so I think I was well within my rights as a citizen of the public AND an a patriotic employee of SBPD to take-”

“Shawn you know damn well that the sign implied you take one piece of candy not one whole damn bowl, you stole candy from children Shawn. I’m pretty sure one of them was in a wheelchair.”

“That wasn’t a wheelchair that was a very small two wheeled tricycle.”

Shawn ignored the glare Gus threw him too busy sifting through the afore mentioned bowl of candy. The street was busy and Gus had to keep yanking Shawn out of the way of cyclists and determined commuters since he refused to glance up even once to watch where he was going.

“Anyway I’m only borrowing it. Its important for the investigation” They rounded the corner the SBPD coming into sight.

“What I don’t understand is why we’re walking to the police station. You know I strained my calf muscle in that circus clown incident last week Shawn, I shouldn’t be expected to unnecessarily aggravate the injury.” Gus took the opportunity to grab a handful of candy from the bowl when Shawn finally glanced away from its contents his attention briefly caught by something across the street. He quickly turned back giving Gus a betrayed look.

“The Reese’s pieces? Really Gus? You know that was the only good candy left!”

“This is my medical compensation” Gus argued as they made their way up the SBDP steps and into the building.

Shawn let the matter drop, suddenly too busy taking in the flurry on activity that greeted them. His anticipation rose. People in the SBPD were busy but not stressed. Easy chatter filled the air as officers exchanged paperwork and cups of coffee back and forth. The perfect environment for Shawn to ‘physically’ glean some kind of important information that might land him a case better than the private one he was already on. A confectionary shop owner who was worried that his next-door neighbor was trying to steal his secret taffy recipe had sounded fun at the time he agreed to it. However Shawn was quickly loosing interest mainly because he thought they would get way more hands on with the taffy itself. So far he hadn’t been allowed to taste a single piece. Shawn caught sight of Jules at her desk and instantly made a beeline for her, Gus on his heels.

“How’s my favourite detective” Shawn exclaimed with a grin.

“Hey Shawn” she greeted a little hesitant but warmly nonetheless. His eyes quickly swept over her desk when she turned to greet Gus. He placed the candy bowl down well away from Gus’s opportunistic hands. Something caught his eye.

“Cant stay and chat Jules” he called over his shoulder “The spirits are sending me very strong psychic vibes that I need to be in the Chief’s office right this very second.” He turned to make another beeline.

“And don’t let Gus anywhere near that Candy Bowl it’s a vital piece of investigative evidence.”

“Oh Shawn wait-” Juliet called but it was too late Shawn was already hovering outside the Chief’s door. He said a silent thank you to Gus who had smoothly intercepted Juliet’s path, effectively distracting her long enough for Shawn to get away. He appreciated it even though he knew most of the reason Gus had stayed behind was because of the now unguarded bowl of candy.

“Not a chance Spencer!” a familiar voice rang out just as Shawn was about to very charismatically push his way into Chief Vic’s office. Lassiter closed the remaining distance down the hallway and knocked Shawn’s hand off the door handle. _Damn it._

“The chief is busy right now and I wont have you interfering.”

“Lassie! Long time no tête-à-tête, love that colour tie on you today by the way! What is that, azure, lapis or cobalt?”

Lassiter’s hand crept halfway up towards his tie before he let it drop seemingly annoyed that he had reacted at all to Shawn’s words. Shawn noticed the man looked wound tighter than normal. Which of course meant he would be way more fun to pester. Sadly Shawn didn’t have that kind of time. He figured Chief Vic was in the middle of deliberating over some exciting new case and he wanted in on it. He was itching to make his psychic reveal.

“I’m serious Spencer get lost”

“You know what? My bad!” Shawn said watching the set of Lassie’s shoulders relax a fraction “It’s admiral, not cobalt. Cobalt doesn’t work for your complexion at all. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Shawn turned the door handle hoping that he’d be quick enough to dart inside the office unimpeded.

“I don’t think so” Lassiter snapped his hand closing around the back of Shawn’s neck as he manhandled him away from the door and back into the main part of the bullpen. Usually Shawn mentally patted himself on the back for a job well done when he managed to rile Lassie up to the point of physical contact but this instance had happened way too fast to be any kind of satisfying. Where was the challenge?

“I’m sensing something” Shawn exclaimed finally managing to squirm out from under Lassie’s grip when they reached his desk, back in the crowded bullpen. He saw Juliet and Gus look over at him with interest. He brought his fingers up to his temple, dodging out of the way as Lassie reached for him again most likely in an attempt to escort him all the way out of the building. 

“Spare me-“ Lassiter began but Shawn quickly spoke over him.

“I’m sensing that whatever is going on in Chief Vic’s office _you_ are involved. I’m guessing they’re planning something….something…..a pension? Detention? Invention? _Intervention! Lassie_ I’m sensing Chief Vic is planning an intervention she thinks that naming your gun ‘The Honkytonk Man’ _is_ weird, personalizing your weapons so much is becoming a problem. At the very least you should have gone for a stronger Clintwood classic _Dirty Harry_ is right there for the taking though I can understand, _low hanging fruit_ and all that-”

“What in god’s name are you talking about” Lassiter began to snap but froze midsentence. Shawn glanced back noticing that the Chief was exiting the office. That was about all he noticed before Lassie quickly hooked his foot under Shawn’s ankle and jerked it forward causing Shawn to loose balance and fall backwards into Lassie’s desk.

“Detective Lassiter!” The chief called briskly beckoning Carlton forward and ducking back into her office. Lassiter quickly followed after her, getting away before Shawn could right himself enough to follow.

“Ow” he complained rubbing the place his elbow had hit the corner of the desk.

“Are you okay?” Juliet asked coming over. Gus looked less concerned and to Shawn’s chagrin had somehow managed to steal the candy bowl back in the commotion. Shawn also noticed the distracted way Jules kept glancing at the chief’s door much the same way Lassie had been earlier. Was that frustration on her face?

“Not sure” Shawn said attempting to undivide her currently divided attention. “I may have a sprained a cuticle its too soon to tell.” He rubbed his shoulder for emphasis.

“You can’t sprain a cuticle Shawn you’re thinking of your clavicle” Gus interjected.

“I’ve heard it both ways,” Shawn disagreed. He glanced down at Lassiter’s desk noticing that the top page of his notepad had been ripped out and there were indents from where Lassie had pressed his pen down too hard on the page underneath. He could just make out a string of words left by the depressions.

“But I’m fine” he sighed dramatically; turning away before Jules could notice that he had been snooping. “What’s Lassielupagus’s problem anyway? He’s wound tighter than Gus’s Jeans after I put them in the dryer a bunch of times to see how much I could shrink them before he noticed.”

“That’s not funny. Those pants cost a lot of money. Those were my ‘ _make a good impression on the second date’_ pants Shawn.”

“Trust me buddy I was doing you a favour” Shawn quipped back.

Juliet jumped in before the argument could go further. “We just got a call about a body found out at that New Greek restaurant that opened up last month, Carlton seems to think-” She cut herself off as if just realizing that Carlton wouldn’t exactly appreciate her telling Shawn what he thought about much of anything.

Shawn lit up. He was definitely _sensing_ the opportunity to earn his next paycheck in a much more exciting way than Mr Schmidt and his endangered Taffy recipe.

It was all he needed to hear to justify flinging himself back across the room and into the Chief’s office, finally managing to get through the door before anyone could reprimand him.

“ _Ahhhhhh”_ He exclaimed throwing himself in between where Lassiter was seated and Vic’s desk. Lassiter quickly pushed his chair backwards, narrowly avoiding having Shawn land in his lap. Instead Shawn threw himself forward onto Vic’s desk.

"I’m having a vision!” He exclaimed loudly. “A delicious, delicious vision! I’m seeing some kind of store. Fragrant smells. Panini Bread. A little plumber dressed in red and blue. Oh, _Oh.”_ Shawn spun this time successfully landing on Lassie’s lap and obnoxiously dragging his hand across the detective’s face. “Questo è tutto! La mascella di Lassie è solida!” He exclaimed grabbing Lassie by the jaw, kind of impressed that the other man hadn’t tried to dislocate his wrist or cause other bodily harm by now. Oh wait. There it was.

“Ow Lassie!” Shawn complained jerking his hand away as Lassiter bent his thumb backwards forcing him to let go. It was interesting to note however that he didn’t evict him from his lap.

“Mr Spencer” The chief interjected not looking very pleased. “I don’t remember requesting your presence.”

“Argh” Shawn said clutching his head as if in pain “Wait I’ve got it!”

*

“Unbelievable” Lassiter snapped striding towards his car at an alarmingly quick pace. “You couldn’t leave my case alone for two minutes”

“It’s not my fault Lassie” Shawn protested, “The spirits guided me. I had no control.”

“Stow the crap please.”

Shawn fake gasped clutching his hand to his heart looking offended.

“While we’re at it get your hand off my car, you’re not coming with me.”

“But the Chief thought it was a good idea” Shawn countered a smirk in his voice “Besides I _like_ coming Lassie. What do you have against me coming?” He dropped his voice suggestively taking advantage of Lassiter’s confused irritation to slip inside the passenger seat. 

“She did not say that” Lassie disagreed quickly bouncing back to ordinary irritation “she said that there was a _slim_ chance that your services _might_ be required and that she would give you a call if anything came up.”

“ _Yes_ however I psychically interpreted the _true_ meaning behind her words with my third eye. And my third eye is definitely saying I should go to the crime scene with the handsome yet boorishly bad-tempered detective and, now this is crucial, that we should stop and get burritos on the way there.” 

“Fine” Lassie sighed since Shawn had already firmly fastened himself into the passenger seat. It would be too time consuming at this point to get him out.

“But-” he continued as Shawn opened his mouth to resume talking “We are not stopping for burritos. “ _Or”_ he said raising his voice as Shawn attempted to interrupt again “any other form of snack, _and_ we certainly are not inviting Guster along- its bad enough you’re coming, I don’t need any running commentary from Beavis and Butthead while I’m busy doing actual real detective work, not your…hokum pokus.”

“Lassie first of all don’t be the puddle of water on the bathroom floor after I put dry socks on” Shawn complained flipping open the glove compartment as Lassiter reversed the car out onto the busy road. “ Second of all, and don’t think I didn’t notice, did you just use the word _hokum…_ I’m beginning to think you have no respect for the way I work.”

“I don’t” Lassiter agreed his lips turning up at the corners with the ghost of a smirk. Shawn didn’t reply he was too busy filing through the contents of Lassiter’s glove box. An extra Gun sat atop a stack of receipts, followed by a handful of granola bars and a magazine that read _Historical Reenactments: Tips and tricks for your upcoming extravaganza,_ a magazine Shawn hadn’t even been aware existed. 

“Spencer get out of there” Lassie griped.

“Hey” Shawn said already tearing into a granola bar “so why were your panties so especially twisted this morning”

“They’re not- I mean I don’t wear- I wasn’t” Lassiter took one hand off the wheel to lean over and slam the glove box shut, hoping that would be enough to kill the conversation.

“I’m _sensing_ that you were”

“Do me a favour and cut the psychic garbage please at least until we get there”

“No can do Lassidophilus, the spirits don’t have an off switch, and neither do I.”

“I’m well aware” Lassiter muttered resigning himself to a difficult car ride and doing his best to ignore at least eighty percent of the stuff that spilled out of the ‘psychic’s’ mouth lest he be tempted to run the car off the road just to shut him up. Thankfully he didn’t bring up his earlier question again.

*

Lassiter noticed the skeptic looks people involved in documenting the crime scene were sending him and Spencer with a mix of satisfaction and irritation. He wasn’t sure which one was winning out at the moment. Spencer had made a serious dent in Carlton’s emergency granola bar supply and was busy munching down on his fourth or fifth as he spewed out his ridiculous theory to the other investigators present at the scene. The restaurant was small but decorated in a way that made it seem spacious. Although the amount of people in the room peering over the crime scene tape at the dead body spread-eagled at an awkward and definitely unnatural angle was doing a lot to kill the ambiance. 

He fleetingly regretted the fact that O’harra wasn’t on this case with him if only simply for the fact that she had a better track record of getting Spencer to play nice at investigations. Then he remembered she was heading out to visit some family in Miami tomorrow and wouldn’t have time to wrap up the case with him. He knew she was annoyed about not being able to take on the case but that was what happened when one inexplicably insisted on continuing to foster family relationships past the age of eighteen. And that was a line of thought he didn’t want to be having right now. 

He sighed feeling a headache beginning to form.

“There’s a connection between the killer and the victim,” Spencer was saying tapping his hand to his temple. “This attack wasn’t random.”

“Don’t be ridiculous” Lassiter hissed in his ear. He was unfortunately standing way to close to the other man, too close to pretend he wasn’t associated with him. “We’ve already established that this murder was money motivated. The cash register is empty and the guy’s wallet is gone. Besides if it were pre meditated the killer would have time to plan a more intricate set up. This was sloppy.” He turned away from the small crowd that had gathered around the body. “Stop making my job difficult-”

“If it was so sloppy why wasn’t it caught on the security tapes” Spencer whispered back. Lassiter opened his mouth to reply but Spencer didn’t let him talk.

“Shhh!” he said bringing his hand up to put it over Lassiter’s mouth. “You’re throwing off my psychic juju.” He spun a little too flamboyantly back to face the slightly concerned smattering of officers and crime scene witnesses and addressed them loudly.

“Yes! This poor man, this purveyor of flavor, this sweet server of delicious Greek goodness was murdered. There’s a killer on the loose and they may kill again! Under the circumstances I suggest we give this murderer a name, The Kotopoulo killer, Souvlaki Stabber?” Spencer paused no doubt running through a list of all the Greek dishes he knew in order to make more terrible puns. “Moussake murderer? Ah forget it it’s a work in progress…if Gus was here he could think of a better one.” He sent what seemed to be a slightly accusatory look Lassiter’s way as if it was his fault Guster wasn’t there. “My _point_ is….” He cast his eyes around the crime scene again as if the answer was hidden there. “What was my point?” 

“Alright that’s enough” Lassiter scowled. He just noticed a reporter skulking in the crowd vigorously writing things down in his notepad. The man looked suspiciously similar to the bastard who had written the terrible expose that had started the _Detective Dipstick_ fiasco. He grabbed Spencer by the arm and led him away from the crime scene and out the restaurant doors.

“What the hell are you doing, trying to cause hysteria?’ he growled “we don’t know for sure if this is connected to anything yet, and even if we did we don’t want the general public thinking that.” 

“Lassie don’t be a Disney sequel, I’m sure my little revelation isn’t going to panic anyone.”

Lassiter sighed and ran his hands over his face. It was a moot point now anyway because the damage was done. There was probably going to be terrible food pun related headlines all over the news tomorrow morning. At the very least he hoped the consequences might humble Spencer a little, although he had his doubts.

He looked back at Shawn who was squinting at something over his shoulder. Lassiter tensed because all he needed after that mess was for Spencer to flip out again on another one of his ‘psychic’ rants. The face he was pulling was all too familiar. He started dragging Spencer over to the car hoping he could nip whatever it was in the bud.

“Carful Lassie, you know I bruise easy.” Shawn pulled out of Lassiter’s grip but mercifully kept pace behind him. “Where are we going?”

“How would I know that?” Lassiter argued “and you’re not going anywhere” he continued firmly “ _You_ are going to wait by the car while I go collect the evidence that I bagged and then I’m going to drop you back off at the station. I think you’ve done enough _consulting_ for one day.”

Shawn looked like he was going to argue but then he did something surprising.

“If you say so Lass. You’re the boss,” he answered easily, keeping pace with Lassiter all the way to where he’d parked the car. That alone was suspicious but the lack of argument from the usually persistent smartass was just down right jarring.

“I mean it” Lassiter said turning to face Shawn and jabbing a finger at him. “You’re done for the day.”

“And I hear ya” Shawn agreed way too amicably “I do. Who can resist that commanding cop voice? Its very compelling.” He raised his hands in supposed compliance, stepping to the side so he could lean against Lassiter’s car. He shot Lassiter an easy smile. “Well go on Lassie, go fetch your precious evidence.” 

Lassiter curled his hand into a fist resisting the urge to press the other man hard against the car and make him shut up or at least demand to know what he was playing at. A moment drifted between them where they were both just starting at each other. Shawn raised his eyebrows expectantly like he knew what Lassiter was thinking, which of course he didn’t because he _wasn’t psychic._ Lassiter reminded himself, realized too late that he’d been glaring at Spencer a little longer than strictly necessary.

“Stay” he warned gruffly before striding away back to the crime scene, hopefully he’d even be able to get a few minutes of real police work done without having to worry about Spencer’s interference. Lassiter gave the restaurant another quick once over secretly hoping he could find something in the chaos that Spencer hadn’t. Irritated and disappointed when he didn’t manage to turn anything else up he collected the evidence bags and headed back to the car. Spencer wasn’t there. He rolled his eyes quashing the little spark in his chest that definitely wasn’t disappointment. Spencer’s disappearing act was probably for the best, that way he wouldn’t have to ferry the man back to the SBPD. More importantly he could continue on to his next location and investigate unimpeded. Lassiter allowed himself a small smile as he slid into the driver’s seat. Today might finally start going his way. 

*

“Gus come pick me up,” Shawn said into his phone. He sat on a bench eating a hotdog he’d purchased from a balding middle-aged vendor with loose change he’d discreetly taken out of Lassie’s car. The fact that the detective had unknowingly paid for his food made the hotdog taste all the sweeter.

“I’m busy Shawn” Gus complained from the other end of the phone “Doing actual work for our _actual_ case that’s guaranteed a paycheck at the end of it.” 

“What are you taking about my sweet, confused little gingersnap, I’ve been on the case all morning.” 

“The private case Shawn, the one about the taffy guy, I know you didn’t forget, you were the one that insisted we take it.”

“Me? Gus as soon as the word taffy left that man’s mouth you were putty in his little well manicured hands. You even wanted him to make you a life-size Val krimmer replica out of candy for the office. I think you’re a _little_ obsessed buddy.”

“That was you!” Gus retorted a tad loudly so that Shawn had to lift the phone away from his ear slightly. “I wanted Catharine Zeta-Jones, you know that Shawn!”

“Zeta-Jones? Really Gus? Don’t you think that would be a little creepy? Besides I just don’t think she has the face for Taffy.”

“She has the perfect bone structure for Taffy Shawn and you know it.”

“I can’t do this with you right now just come pick me up. I’m craving Pizza, there’s a place that serves the best peperoni not far from where I am.”

He heard Gus sigh but he knew it was put on. Gus had conceded as soon as food was mentioned.

“I’m on my way, where are you?”

While he waited Shawn recalled the impressions he’d noticed on Lassiter’s notepad. It had looked like an address. He was certain he knew where to go next.

*


	2. They have Wine Speacials

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Shawn pushes everyone's patience to the limit with trademark shenanigans.

Gus parked the Blueberry out the front of the Italian Restaurant and turned to Shawn.

“Why are we really here?”

“What are you talking about Gus? This is about delicious, delicious cheesy goodness.”

“Do you think I’m stupid Shawn? Is that is? Because I can see Lassiter’s car parked like four car spaces away from us.”

Shawn twisted around in his passenger seat to see where Gus was pointing. Upon spotting Lassie’s car he tsked in disappointment.

“Are you happy now? Lassie officially beat us to the lead. This is a sad day for psychics everywhere. _Man_ this is because you thought you saw Rupert Grint at the dog park on the way over here.”

“It could have been him!” Gus said defensively

“How Gus? How could it possibly have been him? Why would the ginger guy from Harry Potter be in a Santa Barbra dog park?”

“Whatever I’m not passing up my chance to meet Grint just because you’re too busy chasing Lassie’s tail to notice anything else.”

Shawn paused for a minute to consider the merit of that phrase then shook his head deciding it was too distracting.

“I can’t do this with you right now” He said getting out of the car. He turned and waited for Gus to do the same, unfortunately the other man hadn’t finished his tirade.

“Well I can” Gus shot back giving him an odd look over the hood of the car as he locked the driver’s side door. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed this weird little obsession your developing.”

Shawn groaned. He really didn’t want to have this conversation now, or maybe like ever. Especially when he had some real investigating he wanted to do. He hadn’t been kidding before, he was pissed that Lassie had beat them to the punch after all that excellent snooping he’d managed to do. He tapped his hands against the hood of the Blueberry and fixed Gus with a dazzling smile trying to hide his agitation.

“First of all I’m not obsessed with anything except maybe getting my hands on a slice of ham and pineapple heaven. Second of all even if I _did_ have like a tiny, incy, wincy thing for the ol’ Salt and Pepper it would be a non-issue. I’m a smooth mover Gus you know that.”

Gus snorted disbelievingly which Shawn was a little offended by.

“Don’t play Shawn,

“I am doing no such thing. If I seriously wanted a piece of that uptight George Clooney action I could get it easy.” Shawn snapped his figures for emphasis. 

“Yeah right it only took you like what a decade to land Abigail?” Gus shot back. “And Lassiter is _nobody’s_ Clooney you must be out of your damn mind.”

“Whatever Gus, like I said it’s a non issue. Now are we going to Eat Pizza and Solve crime or what?” He felt he didn’t need to point out that Abigail was a _completely_ different situation.

“You know damn well that we are! But don’t think this conversation is over and just for the record I think Lassie is a bad idea.” Gus brandished his car keys in Shawn’s face as if warning him and then finally made his way to the restaurant.

“You…. your face is a bad idea.” Shawn muttered annoyed that Gus had gotten the last word in before jogged to catch up.

*

Lassiter fixed the unhelpful server with one of his more intimidating glares his frustration only rising when she remained resolutely unhelpful. She stood behind the podium she was stationed at barely sparing him a glance as she peeked down at the phone in her hand instead.

It was moments like this he wished he had O’Harra _._ She was always better at getting information of out civilians. _Screw family holidays in Miami._

“Look” He snapped, “I’m not here for a table. I just want to ask the guy that owns this place a few questions.”

“And I told you he’s not here.” The server said back, slowly enunciating each word like he couldn’t understand her. He heard the smirk in her voice.

“Listen here you little-”

And then suddenly he felt an all-familiar hand clap him on the back and his heart stuttered in his chest. All hopes of wrapping up this day without any more interference were quickly evaporating. 

“Don’t mind Mr. Grumpy Guts” Spencer said leaning against the podium and flashing the server a winning smile. To his irritation the server smiled back her eyes now sweeping over them in interest. Her gaze lingered over the way Spencer still had his hand on Lassiter’s shoulder. Lassiter shook it off.

“See he’s just grumpy because it’s our _anniversary_ and we made reservations at this _adorable_ little Greek place but then we lost them because of that terrible murder. Now the restaurant is a crime scene and they won’t even give us a refund. You were so disappointed weren’t you _pumpkin?”_

Lassiter attempted to stomp on the idiot’s foot confident the server wouldn’t see it but Spencer had subtly shifted his foot backwards, expecting the blow. Spencer turned to him with a faux disappointed look on his face and even dared to snake an arm around his waist. He was about to tell him to get the hell off and stop interfering with the investigation when he realized that for some reason Spencer’s bewildering spiel had worked. The server was giving them her full attention.

“That majorly blows” The server said sympathetically “We should be able to fit you in no problem.” She leaned closer to Shawn who was still managing to lean a hip casually against the podium even as he had his arm still around Lassiter’s waist. She gave him a conspiratorial look and said in hushed tones

“I heard that place was bad news anyway. You’re better off here, we have a wine special for couples dining on their anniversary.”

“You hear that Muffin? They have _Wine Speacials”_ Spencer said a ridiculous grin on his face.

“Great” Lassiter muttered when Spencer nudged him. He consoled himself by picturing a particularly satisfying scenario where he picked Spencer up by his shirt lapels and threw him out of the restaurant. Possibly even slapping cuffs on him and pressing him with some kind of charge, obstruction of justice maybe? He doubted it would stick very long. He tuned back in when he realized Spencer was actually managing to pry information out of this girl.

“I thought they were saying what happened at The Greek Taverna was a robbery gone bad,” The server was saying nervously.

“Most likely” Spencer replied which surprised Lassiter. It was only that morning Spencer was shouting foul play from the rooftops.

“Jury is still out though. That’s only what they were saying when I was trying to get my refund back. They weren’t very friendly about it especially when…when I let slip it was our anniversary. We can’t reschedule cause Carly works late hours at the office tonight.”

“I’m not surprised,” the server was saying, she sounded angry. “I know the guy that works there, Ruddy. We used to go to school together, he’s not the most enlightened tool in the shed. If there was something not right about that place he’d probably know about it.” She paused for a fraction of a second her eyes widening a bit as if she’d just realized she’d accidently let something slip. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it” Shawn said placating, grinning again like an idiot “Like I said I’m not really interested in going back. We’re just trying to salvage what’s turning out to be a pretty lousy date.”

She turned sympathetic again. “Of course, don’t worry I’m sure we can salvage it. Our pasta is to die for you know, its hand made. Follow me I have the perfect table.”

“Thanks Ashley you’re a gem. Oh can you set three places. I’ll need a seat for my bodyguard Mr Clean. Normally I wouldn’t bring him along on a date but all that violence from this morning has Carly a little rattled. He feels safer when Mr Clean tags along, don’t you darling?”

Lassiter only just noticed Guster behind them sitting on a small love seat clearly meant for waiting patrons. It was obvious the man was sulking. In his pressed pastel blue button up he also looked the furthest thing from a bodyguard Lassiter had ever seen. Judging from her disbelieving look the server Ashley was thinking something similar.

“He’s a master in Wushu” Shawn said before anyone could object “Isn’t that right Mr Clean.” He grinned at Guster. Guster glared back for only a second before adapting to his role.

“That’s right” he nodded in affirmation before striking a ridiculous pose as if to prove the point. “No one is in danger on my watch- not that I’m expecting any danger,” he added quickly.

Whether she brought it or not Ashley let it slide and ushered the three of them over to a secluded booth. Lassiter was finally able to break Spencer’s hold on his waist when her back was turned. He opened his mouth to give Spencer a piece of his mind especially concerning the fact that Spencer had implied he was _scared_. He was a cop for crying out loud and he was packing. But Spencer was already in a whispered argument with Guster that continued all the way over to the table.

Lassiter grit his teeth and sat at the offered booth making sure to take the side that had a clear view of the exit. Spencer who was still squabbling with his partner cut Guster off sliding into the booth next to Lassiter and forcing the other man to sit on the opposite side. With that the argument appeared to be over. The server handed them menus and left with a smile that was way to familial for Lassiter’s comfort. He turned and glared at Spencer.

“I’m going to kill you,” he promised. This for some reason made Guster look smug which was not something Lassiter cared to examine right now especially when his attention was quickly distracted by something else. “And for god’s sake get your hand off my thigh.”

Spencer backed his hands away quickly and rested them on the tabletop instead.

“I’m just trying to keep up appearances,” Spencer defended his actions easily “For dear ol’ Ashley’s sake.”

“What the hell should she care?” Lassiter retorted and quickly regretted it when Spencer lifted his finger to his temple.

“I’m sensing that seeing other gay couples romantically ‘out in the open’ gives Ashley hope. Hope that her and her sweet, sweet girlfriend Emma can have that same happiness some day. Emma? Or maybe Emily? The spirits aren’t very clear on that. Emily and or Emma is still stuck in the closet and Ash is starting to loose hope that they’ll make it.” He shook his head and put his hand to his heart sighing wistfully for dramatic effect.

“How can you possibly know that” Lassiter replied in exasperation, he rolled his eyes when in answer Spencer just tapped his head again and winked. He refrained from asking how the dynamically stupid duo even knew how to find him here or where Spencer had disappeared to that morning. He figured he’d just receive the same nonsense answers.

“You’re welcome by the way,” Spencer said when instead of engaging with him Lassiter had simply turned to study the menu the same as Guster was doing though probably with less intensity. After a moment even though he knew he was being baited Lassiter couldn’t help but reply.

“Welcome for what? Interrupting an investigation with a ridiculous drawn out charade?”

“For finding us our next lead”

“ _My_ next lead.” Lassiter corrected, “You’re not on the case and I doubt this Ruddy character has anything to do with anything.”

“Well I doubly doubt your doubt” Spencer said petulantly “I think he _is_ connected. He’s so connect that he’s circled back around to being unconnected again.” 

Before he could disagree Ashley came back over to take their order. This time Lassiter couldn’t help but notice the hopeful way she looked over at him and Spencer. She even lit them a candle and brought over the wine specials offering them what seemed to be extra discounted prices. He felt an unexpected stab of guilt for duping the girl that had been so rude to him earlier. It quickly melted into irritation when Spencer felt that her presence justified him putting his hands all over Lassiter again. 

*

Shawn could feel Lassie growing tenser by the minute and he knew he should ease up before he risked a potential injury, judging by the way Lassie’s hands kept reaching for his gun and then aborting the movement, he suspected being threatened with a bullet was probably in his very immediate future if he didn’t stop pushing. But Shawn couldn’t help himself. He had poor impulse control _so sue him_. Plus the charade was working like a charm; Ashley was putty in his hands.

He couldn’t help but send Gus a gloating look over his menu as he reached over and rested a hand lightly at the base of Lassie’s neck, ghosting his fingertips through the hair there. It was _weirdly_ kind of soft. Shawn had a bizarre fleeting desire to demand Lassie grow his hair out! Or failing that at least to tell Shawn what kind of conditioner he used. He also noticed the flush creeping up Lassiter’s neck with definite interest. _Huh._ Maybe Lassie wasn’t as close to a violent outburst as he had previously assumed.

“So Ash” He said conversationally as she lit the candle in the middle of their table. “How long have you worked here.”

“Not long” She replied her shirt shifted off her shoulder again slightly so Shawn caught another glimpse of the cursive ink tattoo peeking out from under it. It read _Em_ and it was encircled in a little heart. It was a pretty small mark but the white Henley the girl was wearing did a poor job of entirely concealing the black ink. A second later Ash stood up straight and the tattoo vanished from his line of sight again.

“To be honest,” she said as she flipped through her notepad ready to take their order “I applied for a job at the Greek Tavarna first only because it was closer to home but I’m glad now that I didn’t get the job. What will you have Gentleman?”

Gus cut in before Shawn could reply to that, ordering enough food for a small army of elephants and not looking very much inclined to share any of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> If anyone catches any mistakes please tell me and I will own you my firstborn.   
> I am a person who somehow manages to miss typos on the eleventh edit of a chapter. It is my fatal flaw.


	3. delicious cupcakes with rainbow frosting might be in our future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to edit and upload this chapter way earlier in the week but I've had a bit of drama over the last couple of days so I'm doing it now. Enjoy!

The Psych office was quiet except for the sound of Gus tapping away at his keyboard in what Shawn decided was a very passive aggressive manner.

“Come on Buddy I said I was sorry” Shawn complained leaning back in his own chair and throwing his pencil upwards in an attempt to get it to stick to the ceiling. “Stop sulking”

“I’m not sulking” Gus said glaring at him from over the top of his computer screen “those were my left overs Shawn, _mine._ I labeled the container, it had my name on it.”

“Its not my fault you have terrible penmanship. That G was barley discernable. I told you I thought it said _us_ like you and me collectively. It was community left overs.”

“I have perfect penmanship Shawn and you know it. Just admit you ate my pasta on purpose to spite me.”

“To _spite_ you? Would you listen to yourself? Why would I spite you? I’m not a spiteful person.”

Gus made a disbelieving noise at the back of his throat. “Oh yeah? What about that incident with Timmy Lambert in third grade.”

“That wasn’t spite that was bravery” Shawn disagreed.

“Whatever! I still think you took my food because you were mad about what I said yesterday”

Shawn threw his second pencil with a little more force and was satisfied when it managed to stick the landing. He deliberately avoided looking at Gus.

“Oh you mean that thing you said about _Ghost_ being a better Swayze movie than _Dirty Dancing._ It’s just categorically untrue and also a filthy lie.”

“That’s not what I said. I said that I thought Demi Moore was a better leading lady than Jennifer Grey.”

Shawn gasped and swiveled in his chair his pencil game forgotten “Oh so you’re just gonna’ put baby in the corner just like that huh? After everything she went through.”

“Everything she went through? Demi Moore lost the love of her life in _Ghost_ Shawn and stop trying to change the subject. You’re throwing a tantrum because of what I said about Lassiter.”

Shawn rolled his eyes “which was what again? I don’t remember because of all the awesome detective work I was doing.”

“About how going after him is a bad idea”

“What are you my mother? Besides I’m not ‘going after’ Lassie” he raised his hands to mimic air quotes and lilted his voice sarcastically.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Gus countered raising his voice so it was slightly higher and more flirtatious. “ _It’s our_ _anniversary”_ he fluttered his eyes in an over exaggerated fashion.

“What’s happening right now?” Shawn asked, “Is that supposed to sound like me? You look like your having a seizure. And I was doing a _bit_ you know that. I do bits with you all the time for cases.”

Gus dropped his shtick and glared at him. “That’s what your voice sounds like Shawn. And you’ve never done a bit like _that_ with me.”

“Aw is Gussy jealous?”

Gus gave him a look that said he thought he was being stupider than usual which was unfair because he wasn’t even attempting to do anything life endangering right now.

“I’m not jealous I just think for your own sake you need to admit you have this weird thing for the cop that’s always trying to out you as a fake. It’s going to get you into trouble and probably me too just by association. I will not lie in court for you Shawn that’s a sacred oath.”

“Why do you keep bringing this up? Maybe _you_ have a crush on Lassie. Come on Gus you know the only man that has my heart is like a young Val Kilmer.” Shawn paused thinking about it for a second “Or Maybe Swazye on a good day but mostly Kilmer.” 

Gus started to argue but Shawn cut him off. 

“We have more important things to worry about. I just got us our next break in the case” He raised his hand to his temple and grinned “In 3,2,1 wait for iiiiiiiiiit.”

The bell sounded over the door and Gus turned to see an all too familiar waitress walk into the Psych office. Gus shot Shawn an annoyed look.

“You saw her cross the street from the window” he muttered so only Shawn could hear him. “That’s not impressive. And how did she know how to find us here, what did you do?”

Shawn stuck out his tongue. Fortunately Gus wasn’t able to retaliate before Ashley greeted them nervously.

“You said to drop by here if I remembered anything else about Ruddy. What is this place?” The waitress looked around a little uncertainly. Shawn got up from his desk and offered her a seat on the sofa perching on the arm and giving her a sympathetic, reassuring look.

“Ash I’m a psychic detective and I was picking up on some bad juju after my date yesterday.” 

“A detective?” Ashley looked a little suspicious then. “I thought you said you didn’t have anything to do with the Tavarna murder.”

“And I didn’t, not yesterday. Yesterday I was strictly focused on my hugely romantic anniversary dinner. The psychic realms work in mysterious ways. Although I’m sensing you weren’t exactly truthful yesterday when you said you knew Ruddy from school.”

Seeing the hesitation in the waitress’s eyes Shawn took a gamble and grabbed her hand squeezing it gently. “Ash if you’re in danger we can help you.”

She searched his face for a minute and then something in her seemed to relent, the set of her shoulders relaxed a little bit. 

“Ok” She admitted wringing her hands and casting furtive looks around the office. “Ruddy is…” she seemed to steel herself “He’s an ex, not my ex specifically. He’s my girlfriend’s ex only he wants her back so he’ been hanging around a lot lately. I-” Her shoulders seemed to slump in defeat. “I don’t know what to do, it seems like he’s one step ahead of me wherever I go. He got the job at the Tavarna before I could, he keeps leaving me messages on my phone telling me to break up with Emily, and I’ve changed my number twice. I’m worried he might’ve-” she broke eye contact and looked down at her hands. “I think he might be guilty. Do you think you can help me?”

Shawn was hit with a surprisingly strong pang of anger to the point where the sincerity he returned wasn’t very put on at all.

“Ash look at me, you have my word. I will solve this case.”

She looked relieved for a second but then unsure “ I can’t pay you very well”

Shawn waved his hand dismissively “Don’t worry about it. This is Pro Bon-o”

She crinkled her brow “The Irish singer?”

“Exactly!”

“He means pro _bono_ ” Gus sighed pronouncing the term correctly without referring to any pop culture icons. He looked less than enthused with the prospect of taking on more unpaid work.

Shawn frowned “no that can’t be right, I’m pretty sure it’s the first one.”

Ashley looked excited “Really? You’ll really take the case?”

“Of course” Shawn grinned taking a step back to regain balance when Ashley threw herself at him in a hug. He tried to ignore the annoyed look Gus was giving him. It’s not like anything had changed, technically they were already working the case, not that he was going to tell Ashley that.

*

Lassiter sat at his desk staring at the files he had brought up on his computer.

The Victim’s name was Jason Renault, 25, non-smoker, no kids. He was as average as average Joe’s get. There was no reason Lassiter could see that someone would single this guy out for murder. His first impression was still that it was a botched robbery job, not necessarily personal. But Lassiter couldn’t get the lack of security footage out of his head. It _was_ suspicious, but suspicious enough to suggest pre meditated murder? If only he could dig up some dirt on this Renault guy then maybe he’d find another angle.

Finally left to do his work in peace without Spencer, Lassiter had tracked down the owner of the _Italian_ restaurant Blake Sanderson. The questioning hadn’t gone as Lassiter had hoped but he still had a niggling feeling that there was a connection between Sanderson and Renault. Sanderson and the victim had been business partners in the past. It made sense. The Italian restaurant was relatively new as was the Greek one. They had both attempted to start up independent businesses at the same time after the partnership ended. It was only natural that they grew competitive, maybe one of them finally snapped and thought they could take out the competition. Even if Sanderson only had nice things to say about Renault, well the man was obviously putting on a front.

Lassiter scrubbed a hand over his face. His eyes hurt from looking at the files for so long. He seemed to be at a temporary dead end. Sanderson had an alibi for the night the murder took place. That didn’t mean he hadn’t hired somebody to do the job Lassiter thought with a spark of hope, making a little note in his computer about the possibility.

Relieved that he had a new train of thought to follow Lassiter decided it was just about time he tracked down his next cup of coffee. As he turned in his chair he caught sight of Spencer on the other side of the bullpen leaning against a filing cabinet and idly chatting to McNab.

For a moment Lassiter wondered how Spencer had managed enter the SBPD without making a scene so goddamn irritating that it interrupted Lassiter from his work. Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth he made a beeline for the break room. Asking McNab to get his coffee now would surely draw Spencer’s attention.

Coffee in hand Lassiter was just starting to believe he’d make it through one of Spencer’s little trips without being harassed. Before he had even finished having that thought his hopes were dashed. The offending man was no longer chatting to McNab but sitting loose limbed and relaxed in his office chair like he god damn belonged there.

“Out” he snapped without much bite. He didn’t have the energy, or he wouldn’t until after he’d managed to down his coffee. Instead of vacating the area entirely Spencer just shifted so he was sitting on the corner of Lassiter’s desk instead of the chair, as if daring Lassiter to come sit in it when he was still in such close proximity.

Lassiter willed himself not to think about the last time Spencer had been in close proximity. Instead he dragged his chair backwards and sat, as far away from Spencer’s corner of the desk as possible. He made sure to move anything pertinent to the investigation away from Spencer’s line of sight. He did it without much thought. It was a deeply ingrained habit at this point.

“What do you want?”

“Do I always have to want something Lassie? Maybe I just felt like checking in, cleansing some auras, making sure my favorite detective is in tip top shape.”

“O’hara isn’t here,” Lassiter pointed out.

“Nope” Shawn responded obnoxiously popping the p and grinning as he did so.

Lassiter took a sip of his coffee, which was just as well he thought, there wasn’t anything very useful that he could have replied to that with anyway.

A moment of silence passed which was impressive because it was very clear to Lassiter that Shawn did want something and he had never known the man to wait so long before he blurted what was on his mind.

Another minute.

Lassiter was running out of patience and coffee.

“Spit it out. Some of us have real work to do.”

Spencer looked momentarily taken aback before his usually glibness was back in place. 

“Right ok you’ve got me, there’s something I just can’t quite figure out Lassie. I have no choice but to take advantage of your astoundingly sharp deductive skills.”

Lassiter raised an eyebrow. Was Spencer actually admitting that-

“How did a chef and a waitress manage to afford that New York apartment on Friends? I mean with those salaries? It just doesn’t make a lick of sense.” 

And yes that seemed to be his Spencer limit reached for the day.

“Leave”

“Kidding Lassie, I’m kidding. Although actually not really. I do want to know the answer to that. More import though is this question.”

Spencer thrust a bright yellow leaflet in his direction. 

Lassiter took it gingerly and read the words.

**Foot Enlargement Kit - Half Price - Limited time only**

He read the words aloud in confusion.

Shawn flipped the flyer around impatiently and Lassiter read it again.

**LGBTQ WEEKEND BAKESALE FUNRAISER**

**FREE ADMISSION FOR KIDS UNDER 12**

Lassiter did not look any less confused. He flipped the paper again as if there would be a third bit of information on it that he hadn’t seen. There was none.

“Still not following Spencer”

“I had a vision”

Lassiter hated those words. He hated them because they were ludicrous and he also hated them because as far as cases went it was usually a risk not to look into it on the _off_ chance Spencer might be on to something. Most of all he hated that if he ignored Spencer’s information completely and it turned out there was something to the story the Chief would have his ass. He missed the days he didn’t have to deal with this kind of crap, although he was starting to struggle to remember when that was.

“Enlighten me” he grit out his voice laced with sarcasm

“Well mostly it involved delicious looking cupcakes with rainbow frosting, but I’m getting a very strong sense that our suspect will be at this event, almost definitely certain.”

Lassiter pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why would Sanderson be at a bakesale?”

It was Spencer’s turn to look gratifyingly confused. “What? Whose Sandle-son?”

“Sanderson, the Italian restaurant owner” Lassiter replied stubbornly “the prime suspect”

“The restaurant owner? Really Lassie, I’m sensing that guy is totally innocent. Well mostly totally innocent. Who hasn’t raked up a few parking tickets right?”

Relieved that he now had a reason to refute Spencer’s nonsense Lassiter set his coffee cup down and stood up.

“Playtime is over mystic, I have some real detective work to do”

“Come on” Shawn wheedled finally standing up as well. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“If you’re so sure about this asinine lead why don’t go drag Guster along. Isn’t that what you usually do?”

Shawn frowned unhappily at the mention of his partner in crime.

“Gus wont come”

“I’m having a hard time believing that you can’t manage to drag Guster to a place filled with food.”

Spencer took a moment to look dramatically forlorn as if he could somehow sway Lassiter through pity. Lassiter began to walk away.

“He won’t come because he doesn’t want to take part in my awesome undercover plan which is awesome” Shawn called after him.

Again it was hard to believe Shawn couldn’t coracle Guster into one of his stupid made up character roles. Whatever it was that Spencer wanted to do it didn’t bode well that Guster wouldn’t agree to it. If the idiot went around investigating a murder alone and actually managed to stumble onto something dangerous he could end up hurting himself.

Lassiter couldn’t allow a civilian to put themselves in danger like that he reasoned, it was his job to protect them, even the really stupid, irritating ones, even from themselves.

Lassiter turned around to face Shawn cursing himself as he did.

“What time is the god damn bakesale?”

*

Shawn frowned at his reflection in the mirror as he tried to masterfully style his hair into perfection. He was a little surprised but extremely pleased that Lassiter had agreed to go with him to the bake sale. If nothing else it would definitely help Shawn keep his story straight when he undoubtedly ran into Ashley there. The idea that he had an excuse to maybe get his hands on Lassie again was a very fun one to consider.

What was more, he was reasonably sure that Lassie had enjoyed the attention last time, although that was admittedly buried under a lot of gruff macho bullshit. Something fluttered in Shawn’s chest that he didn’t care to examine closely. This was just a fun bonus to the case he was working that was all. He knew if he ever pursued Lassie seriously and managed to not get rebuffed in the process that Lassie would expect something, well serious! He was a serious guy after all. Shawn didn’t really do serious, especially in the relationship area.

As much as that made sense Shawn felt annoyingly chaffed as he remembered Gus’s argument from the other day. Gus should have known better than to tell him Lassie was off limits. Who was Gus to say whom Shawn could and couldn’t pull? Gus’s dating record read like a bad list of Scooby doo villains. Who dates a Wiccan for Christ sake? And anyway it wasn’t like he was _super_ into Lassie. Like he was at least almost equally as into Jules and maybe even occasionally some days even Buzz, that would be maybe if Buzz wasn’t already in a deeply committed relationship and straight as a board. Although Shawn didn’t like to assume how far along the Kinsey scale people were without digging up a little of his own evidence.

The point was Gus had no right telling him he couldn’t go there. Shawn could go anywhere he wanted. Besides Lassie was increasingly starting to feel like an itch that needed to be scratched. Shawn put down his hair products deciding his hair couldn’t reach any higher a level of perfection for the day. Finally he jumped on his bike and headed for the fundraiser where hopefully Lassie would be waiting for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to the lovely people who have left comments and kudos <3


	4. Judgmental yellow ducks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shenanigans at the LGBTQ+ Bakesale/fun-raiser/fair? honestly I don't even know what it is at this point except that it's all three at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey I'm back with a chapter. The holidays were crazy.
> 
> There might be a bit of a wait between chapters now because I'm trying to write a decent way ahead of the story before I upload so I don't have to come back and change little details later on, basically i'm trying to avoid becoming a continuity mess. 
> 
> I am also determined to finish this so no matter how long it takes between updates I will not abandon it.
> 
> I hope everyone else had a great end to 2019!

Lassiter pulled into the parking lot. He spotted Spencer’s bike a few rows down and sighed in frustration. Great. Shawn had beaten him here which means he could have already gotten into all kinds of trouble. Lassiter forced his hands to unclench from the steering wheel. It had already been a bad morning. He had fielded two angry calls from his mother and one uncomfortable one from his sister who was upset that he wasn’t coming to the _family brunch_ today in order to ‘reconcile’ things with their mother.

He had shoved the phone between his shoulder and his ear trying to knot his tie while he talked, for some reason it refused to sit straight. He yanked at it in frustration and snapped through the phone that he was a grown man for god’s sake and could handle his own damn issues with their mother without Lulu’s interference. She had snapped out a _fine_ in response the hurt in her voice a barley-concealed undercurrent. He instantly regretted loosing his temper with her. He hated fighting with Lulu and the guilt was already settling heavy in his chest.

“Look” he had tried in a much more neutral tone taking the phone back into his hands and abandoning his tie for the moment. “It’s not up to me. I’m working this weekend.”

“Isn’t your partner out of town?” She had replied, thankfully seeming to forgive his harshness quickly.

“Yes” Lassiter said not really understanding why that was relevant.

“Carlton you know I don’t like it when you do that dangerous police stuff alone.” 

Lassiter rolled his eyes. “Lulu I’m a trained professional I can handle the _dangerous police stuff_ just fine. Besides I’m not working alone.”

“Really?” she replied curiously although Lassiter couldn’t imagine why his reply had been so intriguing.

“You’re willingly working on a case with someone who isn’t Juliet? I thought you said that other cops are a bunch of simple minded lay-abouts with no backbone who can’t even get a simple coffee order right.”

Lassiter cleared his throat awkwardly remembering the rant from a few weeks ago. He had been up to his ears in paperwork because of the latest stupid stunt Spencer had pulled on what was supposed to be a simple robbery investigation and McNab had somehow forgotten the sugar in his coffee entirely.

“I have to go” Lassiter said hurriedly into the phone. “I’m running late” and he hung up before she could reply, partly because it was true he _was_ running late and he hated running late. Also because Lassiter didn’t want to answer any of his sister’s questions or examine too closely why he had agreed to willingly go anywhere with Spencer alone. 

A loud tap on his car door made Lassiter jump and pulled him abruptly from his thoughts. Spencer was rapping his knuckles insistently on the window, a half eaten doughnut in one hand and powdered sugar all over his mouth. Lassiter forced himself to refocus his gaze and quickly got out of the car.

“Spencer cut that out.”

“Yo Lassifrass I was wondering if you changed your mind and stood me up.”

“I thought about it” Lassiter said dryly.

He took in Spencer’s appearance. The man was wearing sunglasses, a pair of ripped jeans and a childish shirt that read ‘Taco Dealer’ on the front and had a picture of a cartoon taco wearing sunglasses. Slung over the ridiculous shirt was perhaps the biggest eyesore of the whole outfit, a plaid that boasted a litany of eye watering colours. The man was wearing a _rainbow_ plaid. He looked absolutely nonsensical.

“Lassie” Spencer said pushing his sunglasses into his hair and fixing Lassiter with a similarly scrutinizing stare. “You look totally ridiculous.”

“Me?” Lassiter spluttered. He was wearing what he always wore, his nice professional, and sensible work clothes.

“Yes you!” And Spencer had the nerve to sound exasperated “this is a gay fundraiser man not a briefing with Chief Vic. You gotta loosen up.”

“I don’t have to do anything that’s not pertinent to this investigation.” He groused stalking his way over to where he saw the admission booth.

The fundraiser was taking place in a large grassy field similar to somewhere the historical club might hold on of their reenactments. There were stalls and tables and booths littering the area as well as what Lassiter thought looked like a pirate ship themed jumping castle. There was a small line that moved relatively fast so it wasn’t long before Lassiter reached the front. Spencer caught up with him quickly, shoving the rest of the doughnut into his mouth and wiping the excess white powder onto his jeans.

“So was this ‘vision’ of yours clear on where I might find your so called suspect.” Lassiter asked handing over the entry fee while Spencer flashed the guy manning the entrance his wrist, which had a bright pink paper band around it. Proof that he had already paid his fee and been admitted earlier.

“Mmm not yet but I’m sensing it involves trying as many baked goods as possible until the spirits see fit to reveal themselves to me again. Cupcakes are a known conductor of psychic energy.”

Lassiter grabbed Shawn by the elbow stopping him from veering towards the nearest confectionary table. 

“I didn’t come to this thing to goof around Spencer. Now tell me why I’m here or I’m leaving. This is technically my day off.”

Shawn’s eyes roved over him in a way Lassiter wasn’t entirely comfortable with, it looked like he was weighing something up. Lassiter hastily removed his hand from Spencer’s elbow when his gaze rested there for a second too long.

“You take days off?” Spencer taunted

“Of course I do” Lassiter said indignantly “I do have a personal life”

Spencer raised his eyebrows like he didn’t believe it.

“Are you saying there’s a off-duty cop Lassie buried deep down in that manly stern bush somewhere and I haven’t seen it?”

Lassiter bristled; he didn’t have anything to prove to a smart-ass like Spencer. But for some reason like with almost everything concerning Shawn he felt like he _did_ have something to prove. 

“Of course there is!”

Spencer stepped into Lassiter’s space then, a glint of challenge in his eyes. As if he were plucking the words straight from Lassiter’s brain Spencer said

“Prove it”

The all too familiar desire to beat Spencer at his own game welled up inside him even if Lassiter wasn’t entirely sure what this game was supposed to be.

“Fine” he grit refusing to back down from the invasion of his personal space because he’s the head detective of the SBPD damn it and he’s not easily intimidated.

“Fine” Spencer repeated more softly than expected and Lassiter was almost sure that Spencer’s gaze had darted to his lips but a second later he realized he must of imagined it. Shawn’s demeanor changed abruptly. He stepped back a triumphant grin on his face and beckoned Lassiter over to the stall he’d been originally aiming for.

“I know you don’t have anything against obscenely sugary drinks so food really shouldn’t be any different. Buy something, it’s for a good cause.” Spencer said a little too loudly for Lassiter’s taste. The man behind the counter gave them a quizzical look.

“Plus it’s totally something a feel-wheeling off duty guy might do for fun.”

“Alright fine.” Lassiter snapped. He selected a small bag of unicorn shaped cookies hoping that it might at least shut the other man up quickly. Unfortunately it did the exact opposite.

“Unicorns Lassie?” he said in apparent delight.

“What’s wrong with that?” Lassiter said gruffly giving Shawn a glare that was slightly undercut by the way his ears turned pink.

“I mean I knew you were a horse guy I jut didn’t figure that extended past anything directly John Wayne related.”

Lassiter ate one of the stupid cookies to avoid answering. It also gave him a few seconds to register what Spencer might actually be telling him.

“You like John Wayne movies?” Lassiter asked in tentative surprise.

“Sure” Shawn agreed, the area in front of the cookie stand was dotted with outdoor seating. Shawn subtlety steered them towards a small round two-person table, one Lassiter personally thought was too small for two grown men, their knees knocked together under the table when they sat down. Most of him however was preoccupied with what Shawn was telling him. 

“I mean it’s more of an extension of me liking _all movies_ but I divest”

“Digress” Lassiter corrected absentmindedly, “What’s your favorite?” he added quickly before Spencer could quip back with his stupid catchphrase.

“Mm” Spencer pondered taking one of Lassiter’s cookies and munching on it thoughtfully. Lassiter didn’t bother to protest considering he hadn’t really wanted to buy the damn things anyway, although they were surprisingly delicious and he was kind of hungry so maybe he protested a little bit actually, he moved the bag out of Spencer’s reach with a small scowl.

“I like Rio Bravo” Shawn finally said noticing the way Lassiter protectively shifted the cookies away from him with a small smirk. Lassiter considered Shawn’s answer carefully.

“That _is_ a classic” he agreed before narrowing his eyes suspiciously “wait you just like it for Ricky Nelson’s hair don’t you?”

Spencer’s smirk widened into a grin, he folded his hands under his chin and- Christ was Spencer actually looking at _him_ like that? It was such an openly coy look, stripped back from any of the usual jack-assery that accompanied anything that usually might be considered as Spencer flirting. He resisted the urge to turn around and make sure there wasn’t someone else standing behind him. But no Spencer was still directly addressing him.

“You know me so well Lass!” Ok now that smile was definitely a little too soft around the edges. “Oh wait I bet I can guess yours!”

Lassiter tensed, expecting a ridiculous, flamboyant little psychic display to follow his words but instead Spencer took a moment to look Lassiter over speculatively,

Then he clicked his fingers in an _ah hah_ sort of way and answered.

“It’s totally gotta be Heartbreak Ridge right?” 

Lassiter’s heart stuttered in his chest, he frowned mostly to keep himself from giving Spencer a grin of his own that he’s sure he’d never live down later.

“Lucky guess” he muttered quickly picking up another cookie to avoid seeing the smug look in Spencer’s eyes. Again he expected protest, he expected to hear Spencer say _no, that the spirits had guided him_ or whatever other crap he felt like sprouting but instead

“I’m full of em Lass’,” he agreed

Lassiter’s brain instantly latched onto the nuances that reply could potentially contain. He fixed Spencer with an intensely speculative look of his own. 

“What?” Shawn said sounding nervous “Is there something wrong with my hair?”

Lassiter rolled his eyes letting his suspicions rest again for the moment, what was he even doing? They were supposed to be investigating. Whatever stupid lead Spencer had dug up, and Lassiter knew it had to be some kind of physical lead and not a _psychic vibration_ or whatever Spencer kept insisting it was, they were supposed to be following it. Lassiter opened his mouth to voice this concern but Spencer was distracted. He gasped excitedly.

“Lassie look!”

Lassiter looked, Spencer was gesturing to one of those tacky fair games that were almost always rigged. Any surprisingly pleasant feelings he might have been feeling quickly slid away. 

“No”

The words fell on deaf ears. Spencer was already up and dragging them over and handing the woman running the game his money. Lassiter sighed.

“Spencer we’re supposed to be investigating”

“Uh where did fun Lassie go? Have you seen him? He was right here just a minute ago.”

It was one of the cliché games where you had to knock over little ducks with a plastic gun. Lassiter rolled his eyes, a gesture of defeat. To his surprise Spencer handed the toy gun to him.

“No” he tried again.

“Come on the big prize is a Perry the platypus. I need him. He’s calling to me. He needs me to take him.” 

Lassiter had no idea what a Perry Platypus was and he didn’t really have the desire to find out.

“If you want the damn thing win it yourself.” 

“I can’t have maiming cute little ducklings on my conscious, even fake ones.” Spencer replied. If Lassiter didn’t know any better he would have thought Spencer sounded serious. He scoffed. Spencer shoved the gun against his chest again and mouthed the word ‘fun’. Lassiter scowled taking the gun. It was a terribly cheap imitation of the real thing. He was a proficient shooter, how hard could the pretend version really be?

“Damn thing is rigged” He spat glaring at the woman running the stall as the shot clipped the cheerful yellow duck but once again refused to knock it over. This was his fourth attempt to win that stupid green stuffed animal.

“I should have you arrested for trying to defraud an officer of the law.”

The clerk gave him an unimpressed look and said

“You lost fair and square.”

“Well I wouldn’t say you lost” Spencer piped up looking far too happy perched on the edge of the table showcasing the smaller prizes. “You won this sweet novelty slinky.” He waved the rainbow plastic around to prove his point. 

Lassiter grimaced and handed the gun back.

“This is a waste of time.”

“Ah contraire” Spencer disagreed. “That sexy display of _almost_ pinpoint marksmanship was exactly the thing I needed to strengthen my connection to the spirits. They’re talking to me again, loud and clear!” 

And just like that the most irritating version of Spencer was back in top from.

“ _Great_ ” Lassiter replied sarcastically. Maybe they could finally get this farce over with. Spencer pointed towards another cupcake stall indistinguishable from any of the others. Lassiter made to follow him without complaint glad to be free from the judgmental yellow ducks.

Yet Spencer moved surprisingly fast and Lassiter cursed, jogging to catch up with him. The man had the uncanny ability to weave through crowds with ease leaving Lassiter to barrel after him, far less successful at managing to avoid knocking into people. When he drew nearer he realized what had made Shawn pick up the pace.

A woman in a colourful apron was cringing backwards trying to pry her hand away from a man that had a tight grip on her wrist and looked like he was spitting heated words at her. The pair weren’t instantly visible, slightly hidden behind the large green recycling dumpster a few feet away from the stall Lassiter had originally assumed was Spencer’s destination. He wondered how Spencer had known what was happening from practically across the field.

As he finally closed in on them Spencer had already thrown himself into the middle of the altercation.

“Whoa there” Shawn said forcing himself between the man and the woman “You got a problem buddy?”

The man looked red faced and furious at being interrupted. Lassiter tensed watching closely, annoyed that he hadn’t been quick enough to stop Spencer doing something completely bone headed.

“Fuck off” The man demanded, “This isn’t your business”

“Shawn?” The woman said startled.

“You know this guy?” The man jeered, “What is he part of your disgusting little club too? You guys go around getting off trying to corrupt other guy’s girlfriends?” He released the girl who Lassiter recognized as the waitress from the Italian restaurant.

Unfortunately his new target was Shawn; he fisted his hands in the collar of Spencer’s stupid plaid. Lassiter moved the take control of the situation his hand inches away from the holster concealed under his suit jacket.

“Whoa Lassie” Shawn said nervously, “Cool your engines.”

Lassiter recognized the edge in Shawn’s voice a second before he saw the flash of silver in the hand of the perp. It rested subtly against Shawn’s throat where Lassiter had just assumed the man was grabbing shirt collar. He stilled.

Satisfied that Lassiter had backed off Shawn turned his attention back to the knife wielding perp.

“See now that just doesn’t make any sense. How would I turn women gay? I might not have paid much attention in biology but I’m pretty sure I’m lacking a few of the essentials. Plus not to brag but I’m really good in bed, so performance wise I don’t think I’ll be making anyone switch teams. Although I will agree with you a lesbian girl gang does sound amazing. Imagine the potential? The matching jackets alone-” 

“Shut up” The man snarled, pressing the small silver blade against his skin with more pressure than before. Shawn hid his wince. “She must have you in on it somehow”

“Come on Ruddy you’re a smart guy right? You’re not going to do anything crazy at a crowded fundraiser.”

The man seemed alarmed that Shawn knew his name; he shot a venomous look at the waitress before allowing himself a slightly nervous glance at Lassiter. Whatever he saw in Lassiter’s expression seemed to make him rethink whatever it was he had wanted to do. The anger ebbed out of him and he took a small step back moving the knife away from Shawn’s throat. The second he backed down Lassiter sprung into action. He had his gun and cuffs in hand and was shouting demands before Ruddy fully realized what was happening.

Shawn breathed a sigh of relief as he watched Lassie swiftly and efficiently confiscate the knife. He cringed as Lassie roughly forced the perp onto his knees. He was practically spitting the Miranda Warning as he fastened the handcuffs. Shawn thought that might have been a little bit of overkill. Especially considering things hadn’t even escalated much.

He turned to make sure Ashley was ok noticing the red mark around her wrist and the unshed tears in her eyes. It was frustrating because as much as he wanted to nail the guy for something, after that brief altercation he was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be premeditated murder. Ruddy didn’t seem like a foresight kind of guy. Shawn calmed Ash down with a few well-placed jokes and a promise that he had everything under control. She nervously peered over his shoulder to where Lassie was still delivering his angry tirade to the ‘criminal scumbag.’ It was starting to draw a crowd. Shawn figured that was his cue and hoped over to Lassiter’s side.

“Lass” Shawn said and then again louder because he was being ignored “Lassiter! You need to let him go.”

That got the man’s attention. He turned to Shawn with an incredulous look on his face.

“Let him go? He just assaulted a civilian in front of an officer!”

“I’m fine” Shawn disagreed “Barley a scratch. This was just a friendly disagreement between two pals, right Rudds?”

Ruddy looked a lot more subdued but it was plain to see resentment smoldering in his expression. 

“Spencer-” Lassiter began in a tired tone

“Lassie I’m not pressing charges, it was a misunderstanding. Let him go.”

Lassiter looked so angry that for a moment Shawn thought he was going to refuse. Instead after a flash of furious silence Lassiter hauled Ruddy to his feet and unlocked his handcuffs.

“This is your first and finally warning. I see you around again so much as _jaywalking_ and I’m hauling your ass to the station and trust me you are going to wish you had come quietly the first time. Do you understand me?”

Ruddy paled but nodded eager to flee the scene as soon as possible. Shawn watched him go with a twinge of regret hoping he had made the right gamble.

After dispersing the crowd Lassiter stalked away in the direction of his car. Shawn watched him go ruefully. He thought that before knife welding crazy person had threatened to slit his throat Shawn Spencer had been dangerously close to getting Carlton Lassiter to loosen up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so fair warning I actually don't know that much about John Wayne but I try my best
> 
> I also love good ol fashion contrustive critisim and feedback so hit me up for anything really as long as its respectful.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed, 
> 
> I'll see you on the flip side


	5. Low Rent Kenickie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shawn's investigation goes a little awry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little chunkier than usual :)

Lassiter is pissed off so much so that when he enters the predominantly empty station where most officers had already clocked off for the day he makes Dobson spill his drink in his hurry to find the files that Lassiter requests. He snatches the files from the alarmed detective and throws then on his desk to pore over.

_Why does Spencer have to be so god damn reckless and stubborn?_

Watching that lowlife scamper away after he pulled a _knife_ on a civilian made his blood boil. He was grimly satisfied to discover the scum already had a criminal record. His full name was _Rudolph Schmitt_ and he had two previous instances of restraining orders placed on him (both in college) and numerous minor shoplifting offences. From what he could understand, Schmitt’s parents had come to his rescue, and posted his bail each time. _Rich and entitled, those were the criminals Lassiter hated the most._

After a little more digging Lassiter found something even more interesting. Rudolph Schmitt was a staff member at the Green Tavarna and he had a shift the night the murder took place yet he hadn’t been present in the initial request to interview everyone working that night. That was enough Lassiter thought with grim determination to bring him in for questioning. Lassiter stretched and blinked in surprise at the numbers being displayed on the nearby clock, minutes had stretched into hours without him realizing and afternoon had slipped into night. Lassiter scrubbed a hand over his face. His frustration from that morning had ebbed and he suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired.

He drove home determined to have a hot shower and a stiff drink before going to bed. His mind resolutely refused to focus on the way Spencer’s eyes had seemed to linger on him today or the way he had lit up when Lassiter had agreed to buy cookies and play stupid carnival games with him. He didn’t understand why he had allowed himself to be so distracted by Spencer’s nonsense. Pulling into his driveway and fumbling for his house keys in the dark it took him a minute to realize the object of his thoughts was sitting on his front doorstep playing a game of Tetris on his phone. _It wasn’t fair_ he thought. He had just wanted one moment to himself before the oblivion of unconsciousness. Also seeing Shawn again after what he pulled that morning brought back the resentment. Lassiter flicked the porch light on making the other man wince at the sudden flood of bright light.

“Go home”

Spencer opened his mouth, probably to spout some nonsense that Lassiter absolutely didn’t want to hear. He cut him off quickly.

“No I don’t care. Whatever it is you were going to say save your breath. Just get out of here.”

“I just came to drop this off, you forgot it.” Shawn said handing Lassiter the colourful novelty slinky that he had won in the carnival game. Lassiter took it from him trying and failing to hide his bewildered expression. Whatever the reason he thought Shawn might be on his doorstep he hadn’t expected it to be this.

“Uh”

“No problem” Spencer replied even though Lassiter hadn’t thanked him “I know its no Perry the Platypus but it’s a memento of our first date so I think you should keep it.”

That comment made so off handedly, made Lassiter want to drop the cheap toy like Spencer had just handed him burning coals. But doing that would be admitting that Spencer had him flustered.

“Well aren’t you going to invite me in? I’ve been waiting for ages. I brought Chinese but you took so long that I ate your half.”

It was then Lassiter noticed the empty take out containers littering his doorstep. He also suddenly realized how hungry he was.

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

Spencer shrugged “I’m a chivalrous guy”

“Yeah you’re a real gentleman. You just admitted to eating my share.”

“Not all of it” Spencer disagreed tossing something small and light in his direction. He managed to catch it in the hand that wasn’t holding the slinky but almost dropped his keys in the process. It was a fortune cookie.

Lassiter’s frustration melted again; he was too worn-out to guess Spencer’s motives for anything at the moment. Cookie and slinky in hand he opened the door and let them both inside.

“You can stay for five minutes but that’s it”

Spencer scrambled to his feet so fast Lassiter almost missed it. He allowed himself a small smirk at Shawn’s apparent eagerness and went straight to the kitchen to pour a drink. He raised the bottle in Shawn’s direction silently asking if he wanted one too. Shawn made a face and shook his head. Lassiter poured him one anyway.

“You have anything that doesn’t taste like gasoline? Oooh lets make margaritas!”

Lassiter accidently let a snort slip but it was easy to pretend it was from exasperation and not amusement.

“Sure” he said sarcastically “Let me get right on that”

Spencer leaned against the kitchen counter drinking in his surroundings with a little too much intensity.

“Stop” Lassiter complained suddenly uneasy, taking a large swig of his drink and loosening his tie with his free hand. Spencer looked taken aback by his demand. His focus shifted back to Lassiter.

“Stop what?”

“That. What you’re doing. Stop it.” He propped himself against the fridge as he said it, gratified to see that his words had taken Spencer by surprise. As usual that uncertainty only lasted a few seconds.

“If your referring to my charm, wit and devilishly good looks I’m afraid you’re out of luck. I can’t just turn this off.”

Lassiter scoffed because that was such a stupidly cheesy thing to say, in only a way that Spencer could pull off. Spencer took a tentative sip of his drink clearly trying not to make a face at the taste. Lassiter smirked feeling oddly triumphant that Spencer found the drink too strong. He tracked the movement of Shawn’s lips and watched as Shawn crinkled his nose in distaste before carefully setting his drink down. Spencer regarded him again somewhat impishly and for no discernable reason that Lassiter could understand Spencer took it upon himself to step right into his personal space. If Lassiter reached out he could touch him. He took another swig of whiskey hoping to banish the thoughts that were starting to form.

“I mean” Spencer said lightly thankfully not coming any closer “I can try but I’m usually much better at turning things on.”

Since his brain seemed to be short-circuiting it took a few seconds to catch onto the fact that Spencer was actually using a god-awful pick up line on him, alone, in his kitchen. If Lassiter could have taken a step backwards he would have. Instead he just held his breath, startled but not as much as he should have been that Spencer had closed the short distance and was now hovering centimeters away.

“Spencer” He began hoarsely as Shawn picked the whiskey glass out of his hand and set it aside without breaking his searching gaze. They were _centimeters_ apart. “Today was _not_ a date.” 

What kind of bizarre world did Shawn live in where investigating a murder constituted a date? Although Lassiter reflected, the idea of mixing work and romance didn’t sound half bad. It certainly would have fixed a lot of the issues he and Victoria had. Shawn seemed to have found what he was looking for in Lassiter’s expression, and was tilting his head slightly. If Lassiter wanted to stop what was about to happen now would be the moment.

Usually he dismissed Spencer’s flirtations as the pseudo psychic being a jackass to get under his skin. Except parts of today had been different. Lassiter was regrettably aware that Spencer was attractive because sometimes he caught him-self trying to pin down the colour of Shawn’s eyes or the way his aftershave smelled. Now, with Spencer leaning in so close was one of those times. When this happened Lassiter tried to double his efforts to have Spencer removed. But right now, despite all of his better judgments and his anger at what Spencer had pulled this morning, or maybe because of it, Lassiter was suddenly the one who closed the gap between them. He grabbed Spencer by the shoulders and spun them around so that _Shawn_ was pressed against the fridge. There was a clatter as magnets fell to the floor and Shawn’s hands latched into his hair in response, incredibly quick to react. For a few blissful moments Lassiter stopped thinking.

His heart hammered in his chest as he felt Shawn’s tongue press into his mouth. It felt so good to have the warmth of Shawn’s body under his hands. A thrill went through Lassiter at the deep satisfied groan he got in response. He dug his fingernails into Shawn’s hips when the other man tugged a little too sharply at his scalp. Lassiter’s lungs were starting to burn from the lack of air. He broke the kiss, the only sound for a few seconds were both of them gasping for breath. Spencer’s eyes were dilated, his lips a little swollen and red. _He_ had done that. _Why_ had he done that?

A grin slowly snaked its way onto Spencer’s face, which made Lassiter’s heart inexplicably sink. The aching feelings of _want_ and _need_ that had been coursing through his body a second ago evaporated. Nervous panic quickly filled the space left behind. _Oh god._ Lassiter’s worst fears were all clamoring for space inside his head.Spencer was just messing with him, had been messing with him this whole time. And now there was this. A thing he could mock Lassiter for down at the station or worse a thing he could hold over him. He let Shawn go as quickly as he grabbed him.

“What? No, no!” Spencer said, “Thinking bad. Kissing Good.”

Lassiter could barley understand the rules in Spencer’s games at the best of times but right at this second it was too much.

“I think you should leave”

“Lassie-”

“Please Spencer just _go”_

Something in Lassiter’s tone seemed to hit him, expression suddenly unreadable Spencer left.

*

_Stupid._ Shawn thought as he jumped on his bike, no destination particularly in mind. All that mattered was that he got very far away as fast as possible.

He didn’t know where the sudden nerve to kiss Lassie had come from. He had come over so ready for Lassie to be furious with him. More furious probably than the time Gus found out that Shawn had stolen and misplaced his limited edition Wonder Woman poster, signed by Lynda Carter. In his defense he was trying to impress a girl at the time and who was he to know that she would perform a double cross and sell it on Ebay.

Much like in the summer of 98’ when he had made amends with Gus by scoring exclusive tickets to a wrestling event that _Brutus the Barber Beefcake_ referred to as ‘ _off the hook’_ Shawn had hoped to quickly smooth things over with Lassie. More realistically he had expected an argument.

Astoundingly when Lassie had finally showed up the flash of anger in his eyes had been brief and quickly smothered. Instead of shouting at him hehad let him inside. This coming from a man that had once gone on a half an hour tirade when Shawn had borrowed markers from his desk (he and Gus were playing a very high stakes game of tic, tac toe.) and accidently let the ink dry out.

Shawn had thought maybe…well clearly he hadn’t been thinking. It’s just that Lassiter hadn’t looked at him exactly _like_ that before. It was a look softer around the edges than anything he normally sent in Shawn’s direction. It made Shawn feel giddy, like he’d spend forever trying to get under Lassiter’s skin if it meant he might look at him like that again. But it annoys him to know that as hard as he works to dismantle Lassie’s walls the man can put them up again within seconds.

Shawn speeds along the dark stretch of road as he thinks and resentment flares in his chest. It didn’t matter. It was just a kiss, a really good kiss sure but Shawn had had plenty of really good kisses. It was probably just the thrill of chasing something he couldn’t have. Obviously that had just been a miscalculated spur of the moment decision. He wouldn’t miscalculate again.

What really mattered right now was solving the case he had in front of him. In order to do that he had find Ruddy and talk to him again, this time _alone_.

*

Gus was worried. He was thinking that he made a mistake allowing Shawn to go to the bakesale without him. But Shawn had assured him that it would be fine. Gus hadn’t relented until Shawn had promised to bring back as many cupcakes as he could carry. And Gus wasn’t an idiot; he knew Shawn had structured the lead in a way that purposely put him and Lassiter into some kind of romantic comedy style situation. The man was constantly trying to live out his life like it was a movie script.

What Gus couldn’t figure out was Shawn was so focused on Lassiter. Did he just enjoy making the man uncomfortable or was there something deeper at play? Gus was uncomfortably reminded of Shawn’s senior year infatuation with Abigail Lytar.

Since Gus was apparently being a ‘terrible wingman’ he hadn’t been invited. Gus had freely admitted that he hadn’t wanted to witness Shawn’s embarrassing attempts to pursue Lassiter. But the fact remained that Shawn was following a lead and it was getting late and Gus still hasn’t heard from him. He tried Shawn’s phone again and when he got voicemail he left another message. Something was making him feel uneasy. He only weighed up his decision for a minute longer. With a long-suffering sigh he dialed Lassiter’s number.

*

Shawn flashed back to the memory of his confrontation with Ruddy. The man had his cap on backwards but after Lassiter had freed him Shawn had managed to glimpse the logo as Ruddy scampered away from the scene. It was the logo of presumably his favorite football team. Luckily for Shawn that football team had the support of a local sport bar and he had a suspicion that it would be the kind of place Ruddy frequented a lot, specifically if he had troubles to drink away.

Shawn lucked out when he entered the bar and spotted Ruddy almost instantly, slummed over a barstool with his back facing the entrance, the tacky cap still on his head. Shawn walked over and perched on the stool next to him. The guy still didn’t look up or notice Shawn’s presence. Honestly how had he thought even briefly that Ruddy could plan a murder without leaving an obvious trail of evidence? He was more unobservant than the starfish from SpongeBob. He’d be like if the starfish had anger issues and carried a knife around in his back pocket. 

“Rudy” Shawn said slapping the man on the back, “Rudds, the Rud Man, RuRu, Rudders! What is _up?”_

Ruddy flinched startled and turned to face him, blinking in shock a few times before comprehension dawned on his face.

“Fuck off” He stood up quickly but none too gracefully. He was drunk, or tipsy. At any rate when he stood his elbow knocked into his half empty glass spilling it everywhere. A good portion of the beer had splashed onto Ruddy’s pants and it was with great strength of will that Shawn refrained from making any of the jokes he wanted to make. He needed information from this guy and as much as it pained him none of those lines were likely to get him anywhere.

“Whoa, don’t get too excited” (Ok maybe just _one)_ He grabbed a handful of napkins and let Ruddy try to clean himself up.

He had no doubt that this guy was a creep and a risk to Ashley at the very least but right now he looked ridiculous as he furiously rubbed the seat of his pants. He figured his best shot at civility was going to happen while the man was still distracted by his crotch. (Shawn had definitely been there before, usually under much more _pleasurable_ circumstances)

“Hey uh I just wanted to say sorry about today, about almost getting you arrested and not even in any of the fun ways.” Shawn said putting on his overt ‘charm a stranger’ voice.

Ruddy looked up at him suspiciously then, the panic at his appearance was dissipating and being replaced by, well by the look on his face Shawn would guess constipation but he gathered it was something a little more like anger, not the unthinking rage from before more the anger of a man that had unfairly lost his drink.

“Yeah, well” Ruddy said stiffly “I didn’t do shit to you, you should have minded your god damn business. I was wronged, I was just trying to protect my own.” 

There was definitely a part of Shawn that loathed the fact that he was about to try and worm into this guy’s good books. He genuinely wanted to keep this guy away from Ashley, or any living person for that matter, but if he wanted to do that he needed to solve the case.

“You’re right, none of my business” Shawn said back with what he hoped was an easy smile, filing his anger away for later. “I just thought it would look cool y’know. I thought I could impress some girls if I won a fight or something. Girls dig stuff like that.”

Ruddy still looked suspicious but less so by the minute. Shawn sensed an opening and he went for it.

“Hey look I’m really sorry man, let me buy you another drink.”

Two hours later and Shawn realized that if there was an Olympic medal for most beer spilled in one night Ruddy would have it. Shawn had wrangled his way into a game of pool with the other man and watched almost in slow motion as Ruddy, forgetting he had placed his drink down minutes before swung his pool cue around to line up a shot and almost sent the drink careering off the corner of the table. Shawn caught it at the last second. Ruddy turned and looked at him in awe.

“Holy shit how did you do that”

“Quick reflexes” Shawn told him. “Hey, this looks almost empty, you want another round? I’m buying, I’m clearly going to need more alcohol if you keep winning like this.” (In actual fact it had almost been challenging to try and make the loosing look natural, not because he was good at pool but because Ruddy was just that bad.)

“Well yeah” Ruddy fixed him with a boozey grin “They don’t call me the ball master for nothing.”

Shawn swears he might actually die tonight from biting his tongue so many times. _Ball master?_ Come on son! Shawn makes his way to the bar fishing a worn canvas wallet out of his jean’s pocket. The wallet isn’t his, the real reason he had been quick enough to catch Ruddy’s third spilled drink was because he had been aiming for something else.

A guy’s wallet was like a widow to his soul, or if not his soul than at least his behavioral patterns. Shawn orders the drink and then pretends to fumble with the change as he makes quick stock of the contents of Ruddy’s. Lottery ticket stubs and condoms were tucked right next to the bank notes. _Holy Shit._ That was a lot of dough. Why was someone doped up with that much cash in a dingy place like this? There was something else that made Shawn pause. A dog-eared photograph of young girl and a baby was tucked away between the lottery tickets. The girl barely looked old enough to be a mother, but there was a gaudy silver ring on her left hand, engagement ring? Shawn quickly flipped the photo over noticing a phone number had been scrawled across the back in smudgy handwriting.

The bartender cleared her throat slightly which indicated to Shawn that his few seconds were up. He handed the money over and collected the drinks. He had had a few beers with Ruddy to keep up appearances but not enough to dull any of his senses too badly. It had been surprisingly easy to warm up to Rudy’s good side considering he had held him at knifepoint that morning. Shawn wasn’t sure how much of that to attribute to alcohol.

He slowed a little as he neared the pool table noticing that Ruddy was now talking to someone else. They looked like they were arguing but Shawn wasn’t too keen on the idea of jumping between another argument so soon, especially since he didn’t have an angry gun wielding detective to jump in and tag team him at the last second, or a Gus who was usually in charge of calling the gun wielding detectives when things got dicey. He couldn’t see the mystery guy’s face but judging from what he could see of the profile he didn’t exactly seem like the kind of person who frequented these kinds of places. He dressed kind of like Gus if Gus was a balding white guy. Shawn hung back until the guy stalked off, still not managing to get a good look at his face. Ruddy wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and started to reset the pool table.

Shawn discreetly replaced the wallet before clapping Ruddy on the back. Thinking about the baby picture and the fact that Rudy was almost literally rolling in it, Shawn tried a different tack.

“Better make this the last game, I don’t think I can take another loss and I’m supposed to pick up my kid tomorrow, he gets to spend a whole three days with me this week.” Shawn infused his voice with gooey excitement. He didn’t have much experience in the area of sentimental father figures but he thought he understood the basics. 

Ruddy looked up from where he was re powdering his pool cue and did a comical double take. He looked so startled for a second Shawn thought he had miss-stepped.

“You got a kid?”

“Yeah”

To his relief Ruddy’s face lit up. It was kind of disconcerting the duality of the man that had been aggressively creepy and homophobic this morning apparently melting with delight at the mention of children.

“Me too! How old is yours?”

Shawn tried to think back to what he knew about kids but the only thing his brain came up with as a point of reference was the movie _Stand By Me_ and somehow he didn’t think the found friendship dynamics of four dudes bonding over a dead corpse in the woods was going to help him here. The younger his imaginary child was the less there was to know about it right? 

“Uh three in October, what about you?”

“Two, He’s just started to say _Dada_ I swear it’s the coolest shit!”

“The coolest” Shawn agreed trying to sound sincere “So uh you only on weekend visitation, like me?”

Ruddy’s face darkened again an echo of the man from earlier.

“You could call it that. I haven’t been able to see him for five months. My girl reckons I’m a _danger._ As if I would ever hurt my own kid. You get it right? I could never do that. If only she would stop lying.”

Shawn made the appropriate noises of agreement, an idea starting to form in his mind. 

*

It look Lassiter a minute to grope for his phone in the darkness of his bedroom, by the time he’d pressed answer he thought he might have missed the call entirely. He squinted at the caller ID, it read _Idiot #2._

“What do you want Guster?” He snapped. It was late and he was tired and his headache had not abated with sleep like he had hoped.

“Is Shawn with you?” The voice on the other end of the line asked

“Why the hell would Spencer be with me at one in the morning?” Lassiter replied a little too defensively. He was more awake now and dread was settling in his stomach. No good phone calls came past midnight.

“I just” Guster sounded worried “Haven’t heard from him since this morning and I knew he’d been investigating so…”

Lassiter sat up, flicked on his bedside light and rubbed his eyes trying to figure out what Guster was telling him. Although his body was responding quickly his brain was still a little foggy.

“I’m sure he’s in bed, _asleep.”_

“He promised to meet up with me tonight” Gus disagreed sounding annoyed himself now. “And he never showed, I thought you guys might still be following the lead”

The wheels in Lassiter’s head finally started turning. Spencer had gone _home_ hadn’t he? Especially after what happened. His brain deliberately skittered around the details of Shawn’s brief foray in his kitchen; he was desperately trying to scrub that from his mind. But Spencer wouldn’t have just left his house to keep chasing leads by himself after dark with no back up. They hadn’t even really _found_ any leads to follow at the bakesale, Spencer had forced him to release the only suspicious… _damn it!_

“ _Have you checked his apartment?_ ” Lassiter asked desperate for this to be a false alarm because he thought he should be afforded the dignity of avoiding Spencer for a few days, if not that then at least more than a few hours.

“Yes. His Bike is gone,” Guster told him

His heart sank further. Lassiter was going to kill him, but first he had to find him.

“I’ll meet you at the Psych office in twenty minutes.”

He hung up and had already scrolled down to O’Hara’s contact number and was about to press call when he realized she’d still be out of town until the day after tomorrow. He debated pressing call anyway but then decided against it. After all it was probably nothing. 

*

Shawn bid Ruddy a drunken farewell supposing that he’d done enough investigating for the night. Button down mystery guy niggled at the back of his thoughts. It was weird. All that Shawn had been able to glean from the profile was that he’d obviously come from some kind of office job. Who tucked in their shirt to come drink at a run down sports bar? On that fact alone Shawn didn’t think the man could be very intimidating despite the fact that he had evidently made Ruddy uneasy. If only he’d managed to see his face. Shawn clicked his tongue, his eyes resting on one of the security cameras tucked in the corner of the bar. He was probably going to need to see that footage.

Shawn stared dumbly at his bike where two very intoxicated people were leaning against it and unabashedly groping each other.

“Hate to break up this little game of tonsil Hockey before it gets to second base but you guys are kinda macking on my ride home.”

The couple broke apart at his intrusion. Was it an intrusion if they were intruding first? A woman with a shaggy pixie cut and a nose ring looked annoyed at being interrupted, the leather jacket wearing dude that had been attached to her face looked furious. _Great, more angry straight men._

“This isn’t your bike?” Pixie cut said turning a slightly accusatory look on _obviously overcompensating for something_ leather jacket guy.

“Course it is babe, that Jackass is wasted, doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Leather Jacket looked pissed but there was a slight edge of panic to his voice. “Get bent man, can’t you see we’re in the middle of something.”

Shawn rolled his eyes; he was immune to angry looks, a personal trait he had often considered very useful. He twirled his bike keys around on his finger.

“Look James Dean as endearing as this little seduction attempt is I have places to be so if you don’t mind going ghost that’d be great, oh and just for future reference _Halle Berry_ over there is a lady of the night, so unless you’re planning on living out some kind of pretty woman fantasy I’d scarper.”

Pixie cut was looking more than irritated now; she was also glaring at him.

“What the _fuck_ did you just say?” Leather Jacket spat advancing on him quickly.

Shawn backed up barely avoiding being grabbed by the collar. 

“Look man I’m just trying to do you a favour, clearly you can’t afford to foot that kind of bill if you’re pretending to own another dude’s wheels.” Shawn made eye contact with Pixie cut over Leather Jacket’s Shoulder “Sorry to ruin your night but Low Rent Kenickie over here is flat broke”

She glanced at the keys in Shawn’s hand and seemed to realize he was right; she gave them both a look of disgust and walked away. Low Rent Kenickie seemed to take even more offence at her absence. This time he succeeded at grabbing Shawn by the shirt. Shawn briefly wondered if there was some kind of card he could stamp for getting into this situation twice in one day.

“Look I appreciate the tough guy routine ok I get it, your parents never hugged you enough as a child and now your self esteem is all kinds of screwed but I think we’d all be better off if-”

He didn’t see the hit coming but fuck if he felt it, right in the eye. Shawn reeled backwards clutching his face, vaguely aware that he was now kneeling in the dirt. Leather Jacket spat at him but Shawn only briefly registered it. He was more caught up in the fact that the whole left side of his face was throbbing in pain. He let out a low breathless laugh that probably sounded more like he was gasping in pain. Taking it for the latter Leather Jacket seemed satisfied and left presumably to find another date or failing that a blow up doll. Shawn almost let that insult fly but he did have _some_ self-preservation skills and besides his face _really fucking hurt._

He fumbled for his phone with the hand that wasn’t clutching his quickly swelling eye. He hit Gus’s number; it picked up on the first ring.

“Shawn! Where are you?”

“Oh you know” Shawn groaned “Just thought I’d nip down to Buckingham Palace, see how ol’ Liz is doing, maybe find the lake Hugh Grant walked out of in that sexy Shakespearian chick flick.”

“It’s Jane Austen and you’re thinking of Colin Firth, I know you know that because we both watched that movie to impress the same girl. Stop playing Shawn! Where are you? We’re on our way.”

Shawn had managed to push himself to his feet, he lifted his left hand away from his face tentatively but the cold air against his skin made him wince and he couldn’t really open his eye all the way. If he couldn’t see he couldn’t drive his bike, and he wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of leaving it lying around after that. 

“How can you be on your way if you don’t know where I am.” He said leaning on his bike to steady himself. He enjoyed the way Gus said his name again partly in exasperation and partly in concern. What he didn’t expect to hear was a slight scuffle for the phone and another familiar voice cut in harshly.

“ _Cut the crap Spencer where the hell are you.”_

Shawn felt briefly like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on him. He relayed he address quickly if only so the phone could be passed back to Gus as soon as possible. He hadn’t been planning on hearing Lassie’s voice again for at least a couple of thousand years, or however long it took for his ego to recover from the rejection. He especially didn’t want Lassie to see him looking this pathetic and on top of that his hair was probably a mess. As soon as the phone was passed back over to Gus Shawn started hissing indignantly

“What the _hell_ man, you called Lassiter? Just cause I was MIA for a few hours?”

“I thought you might have been with him” Gus said defensively “It’s not my fault Shawn! You were supposed to keep me in the loop.”

“I texted” Shawn defended himself, he wondered if it would look weird if he just pressed his face against the cool surface of his bike in order to give his eye some relief.

“ _Don’t forget to tape American Duo’s_ is not keeping me in the loop Shawn!”

“Sure it is” it was a relief to pick up this thread of conversation because it meant he didn’t really have to think of the implications of Lassiter chasing after him at one in the morning after throwing him out on his ass. He let Gus’s banter carry all the way through until he could spot the Blueberry turning into the dimly lit car park. They pulled into the lot several spaces away, unable to find a spot closer. Shawn was busy pressing his hand against his swollen eye again as he waited mostly for an excuse to avoid looking at Lassie who was storming over to him like he was about to make an arrest.

“Shawn what the hell happened to you?” Gus gasped tugging Shawn’s hand away from his face to inspect his swollen eye in the pale yellow lamplight. Lassiter was right behind him glaring in a way that made Shawn feel extremely exposed.

“I wanna say _you should see the other guy_ but that sounds too lame. Give me a minute to think of something better.” He tried to stretch his face into a grin but it hurt. He winced instead.

“I’ve seen you throw a punch Spencer, you hit like an under developed infant. A six year old could beat you in a fight.”

“Sh’yeah but that’s only cause six year olds are demons that fight dirty.”

He looked slightly to the left of Lassie when he said it. He really didn’t want the eye contact. That was admittedly a lot easier to avoid when only one of his eyes was functioning.

“That looks really swollen Shawn I’m going to get the first aid kit out of my car.” Gus said in a _no arguments_ kind of voice, Shawn would tease him later about sounding like a mother hen. But right now he mostly wanted to stop him and demand that he not be left alone in a dark parking lot with Lassie. He might actually shrivel up and die from the awkward silence alone. But he didn’t know how to covey that without the detective hearing him and his telepathic connection with Gus seemed to be on the fritz because leave him alone in the dark he did.

“I’m fine” Shawn said when Gus was out of earshot. He was well aware he sounded petulant but he was unable to stop. “You can go home.”

“I don’t take orders from you Spencer.” Lassiter retorted coolly. 

Shawn was exhausted and in pain and Lassiter was in actual fact now that he started to think about it pissing him the fuck off.

“Well maybe if you did you’d actually manage to do something right for a change. That would be a _new_ and _fun_ experience for the both of us. You know it’s no wonder you can’t get laid if you treat all your dates like they stabbed you instead of kissed you. Going limp before even sliding off first base? That’s pretty embarrassing Lassie.”

Lassiter looked so angry that for a second Shawn thought he was about to get another shiner. He didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed when instead Lassiter sucked in a sharp breathe and said

“ _Are you drunk_?”

Not drunk but definitely dizzy, Shawn didn’t realize he was swaying until he almost fell forwards. The world blurred for a second. Lassiter quickly stepped forward his hand a vice like grip on Shawn’s shoulder, stopping him from tilting dangerously again. His eye throbbed and he felt it reverberate inside his head.

Lassiter grabbed his chin and tilted it upwards-forcing Shawn to look him. The anger was still draped over the hard lines of his face, his mouth set in a harsh scowl but simmering just under the surface of his piecing blue eyes, was concern.

Under normal circumstances finding that hint of evidence that Lassie cared about him would leave Shawn feeling giddy and triumphant but right now it just felt like a second punch in the face. What the fuck did Lassie think he was doing? Kissing him back and then kicking him out and then chasing after him. Being angry with him and then, cradling his face like it was made of glass. Shawn wanted to keep yelling but his words seemed to tangle in his throat. 

“Spencer you have a concussion” Lassiter’s voice was so clipped that Shawn thought he must of imagined the feeling of Lassie’s thumb gently ghosting over his cheekbone. Shawn closed his eyes because he thought it was easier in that moment not to have to see or feel anything. 

“You need to take him home Guster. I’ll take care of the bike.” Words thankfully not aimed at him anymore. Gus was back. Lassie’s hands retracted quickly and Shawn heard him take several steps backward very quickly. _Wait Lassie knows how to handle a motorcycle?_ He cracked an eye open. Gus was setting the first aid kit on the seat of the bike. Lassiter was scrutinizing the ground. 

“I was gone for five minutes” Gus muttered to him under his breath as he rummaged through the kit, “Lassiter looks like he wants to discharge his weapon, what did you do?”

“Lassie’s just mad because he refuses to acknowledge that _One too many_ is the most underrated after school special. I mean it has Val Kilmer _and_ Michelle Pfeiffer pre Hollywood. It’s a classic!” Shawn states loudly words slightly slurred.

He’s aware that there’s still an edge of anger to his voice that’s undercutting his glibness but luckily Gus seemed to let the matter drop with merely a look of exasperation. He hands over a cold compress

“Here this should constrict the blood vessels and stop the swelling.”

Shawn groaned in relief as he applied the compress to his skin.

“Gus buddy you’re the best”

“Ice on and off for ten minutes at a time” Gus tells him. Shawn hums in response and then looses track of time for a few minutes. He closes his eyes again because the compress feels so good.

“He’s concussed Guster. I’ll drop the bike back at the office, don’t leave him alone or let him fall asleep.”

“I’m not stupid” Gus retorts. Shawn smiles at the snap in Gus’s tone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for tuning in on this week's episode of Shawn is a dumbass. We love him anyway.
> 
> Feedback is like Oxygen and thanks for reading! :)


	6. Motive and Monster Bites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which conclusions are not so much made as they are blindly jumped to from a great height. That is after all how all good detectives do things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey I'm back! Thanks for the patience. It's a longer chapter again. Things have been crazy this month as we all know. I hope everyone is going ok. 
> 
> Hopefully another chapter about two whole idiots helps :)

Lassiter doesn’t get any sleep that night, or much the night after. He cant get Spencer out of his head and he spends a good deal of the time he should be sleeping trying to untangle the worry from the anger. Things would go a lot smoother if he could firmly separate the two emotions. He doesn’t exactly feel any better when he finally manages to drift. To top it all off his Sunday morning sleep in is interrupted by another phone call from Laruen.

“What is it?” he gurgles tiredly into the phone.

“Are you still in bed?” Lauren asks, “It’s nearly eleven in the morning”

“Late night” he replies blinking up at the ceiling and trying to bring the world back into focus. He doesn’t feel like elaborating.

“Right, well I’m still in town, since you couldn’t make it to lunch I thought maybe I could stop by today…if you’re not busy?”

Lassiter sits up so quickly it takes him a moment to reorient himself. He glances at the mess. His bedroom alone is not fit for public viewing, and he knows the living room isn’t much better. On the other hand he doesn’t want to disappoint his sister again.

“How about we meet for lunch on the boardwalk?” He says trying to clear the sleep from his voice.

“Ok, see you in an hour”

Her delighted reply sparks a warm feeling in his chest. This is exactly what he needs to put his emotions back in check. Today he’ll have lunch with his sister and tomorrow he’ll go back into work with his head on straight and crack the Renault murder case with just enough time to regale O’Hara with the details over coffee. She is due back from her leave on Monday so the timing will be perfect. He will spend absolutely none of that time worrying about Spencer. 

*

The sports bar looks particularly dilapidated in the early morning light on Monday. A quick flash of his badge gives Lassiter access to the security footage the night Spencer, but more importantly the night Rudolph Schmidt had been present. Schmidt is at the bar a full hour and a half before Spencer shows up. He is alone for most of that time sans a few minutes where he converses with an unfamiliar woman who buys him a drink. Their body language suggests they don’t know each other and Lassiter finds it strange that anyone would want to buy Schmidt a drink but that’s really none of his business.

It’s not long after that Spencer finally makes his entrance. All the grainy footage reveals is that Spencer somehow still manages to get under his skin even when he’s just a tiny dot on a screen. That and he’s a damn pickpocket. None of this is particularly surprising nor does it offer Lassiter any insight into why Spencer had found it necessary to chase after Schmidt alone.

Obviously Spencer thinks Schmidt is involved in the Renault murder somehow. Lassiter knows that _personally_ he’s itching to link him to violent crime because he’s a law flouting little weasel. Despite the fact that Schmidt works as a waiter at the Greek Tavarna Lassiter is still struggling to connect the guy with a plausible motive. Of course little things like motive, never bothered Spencer who only needs reasons as flimsy as ‘bad vibrations’ to justify throwing caution to the wind.

Finally Lassiter reaches the part of the video in which Spencer is accosted in the parking lot and has to tamper down his startlingly strong reaction to seeing him knocked into the dirt. If Lassiter takes a minute to file away information on the aggressor to later charge him with assault well that’s nobody’s business but his own.

He doesn’t find any satisfactory leads on his first perusal of the footage but Lassiter requisitions the tapes anyway and takes them back to the department to go over again. Annoyingly this is still where he finds himself the next day, at his desk pouring over the grainy security footage and resolutely trying to tamp down the desire to call the psych office to check up on Spencer and see if he was all right. He’s lost count of the amount of times he’s watched the miniature version on his screen slam into the asphalt. Of course strictly speaking this isn’t the part of the video he should be focusing on.

Yesterday Lassiter had requested Schmidt come down to the station for questioning but he hadn’t showed up. Today Lassiter had sent Mcnab out to bring him in by force. Instead of running through the pile of interrogation questions on his desk he rewinds the tape and watches Shawn walk back through the bar door, making Schmidt spill his beer within the first thirty seconds of their interaction.

Unbidden Lassiter’s mind wanders again. Spencer had crossed so many of their invisible unspoken boundaries when he’d propositioned him in his kitchen. Why had he done that? Before the weekend Lassiter had been perfectly content to willfully ignore all of the unspoken tension they had between them. Of course they had to go and snap, like a rubber band pulled too tight for too long. Lassiter has spent most of his life exposing motive and his problem is that he can’t dare to hope he knows what Spencer’s motive was that night. 

“Carlton!” 

“Mm?” He snaps back to reality realizing a little sheepishly that he had been chewing on the end of his pen instead of writing with it. O’Hara is staring at him with a funny look on her face. Although Lassiter is disappointed he hasn’t been able to wrap up the Renault case in time to regale her, he is thankful enough to have her back that he lets go of the small disappointment quickly. Her familiar presence makes his _work life_ at least feel less complicated. Realizing she is still staring at him he quickly wipes the back of his mouth with his hand.

“What do I have something on my face?”

“No, I’ve been trying to tell you. They have Rudolph Schmidt waiting in interrogation room one. Buzz brought him in.”

Lassiter stands up quickly almost knocking a manila folder from his desk. “Well what are we standing around here for, lets go!”

Finally, he had this worthless little worm in his grasp. He’ll be able to nail him for something. Anyone who shares the name of a German World War II General has to be up to something. O’Hara rolls her eyes but doesn’t comment on his renewed focus.

“You’re not going to like it” She warns him as they walk, he doesn’t even get the chance to ask her what she means by that before he figures it out for himself. McNab is busy desperately trying to subdue an extremely irate old man who is yelling something about his son, innocence and the audacity of the police. _God! Why can’t family just stay the hell out of police business?_

“I’ll try and talk some sense into him before the Chief notices” O’Hara mutters

“No need” Lassiter replies, he’s head detective after all and keeping the police department under control is his job.

“Carlton I don’t think-”

He cuts across the bullpen to where Schmidt Senior is starting to draw a crowd. 

“I got it from here McNab”

“Yes sir!” McNab replies his voice dripping with relief.

Mr. Schmidt turns his red faced anger onto Lassiter with renewed vigor as McNab scampers away looking like a Great Dane with its tail between its legs. Lassiter extends his arm for a handshake, a professional smile on his face.

“Mr. Schmidt I presume? I’m Head Detective Carlton Lassiter”

“Listen beanpole” The old man growls “I don’t give a shit if you’re the queen of England. No one has the right to drag a Schmitt from his own house. What ever it is you think my son has done I can assure you that you are mistaken.”

Lassiter bristles _Beanpole?_ He gives the angry old man a pointed once over. Entitled, no respect for the law and obviously wealthy. His kind practically raised criminals by the litter.

“Your son had _every_ opportunity to come to us of his own violation.” Lassiter snaps the professional smile sliding off his face. “If he has nothing to hide he shouldn’t mind answering a few questions.”

The elder Schmidt appeared to be quickly revising his approach to Lassiter. He glances around fugitively and then clears his throat.

“Is there somewhere we could discuss this in private?”

Lassiter had heard that inflection one too many times in his stint as Head Detective. Men who thought they were above the law were _not_ above a little bribery.

He smiled thinly “Why don’t I show you exactly where you can shove your private discussion Mr. Schmidt?” 

And O’Hara was back at his side sending him a thinly veiled look of exasperation.

“What my partner means is that we’d be happy to discuss the situation concerning your son with you, and thank you for your cooperation in the matter, if you would follow me this way.”

She shuffles him off to an empty meeting room, sending Lassiter a meaningful glance over her shoulder, a clear invitation to leave the matter with her. He refrains from rolling his eyes. O’Hara would learn eventually not to give every old geezer with an attitude problem the benefit of the doubt. 

Just as he predicted she returns from her ‘meeting’ looking less than pleased. In fact she looks livid. 

“Not a word” she insists as they prepare for the interrogation.

Lassiter huffs slightly because ‘ _I told you so’_ had been on the tip of his tongue but he lets it go. They have bigger fish to fry.

Schmidt Jr. is sitting on the metal chair tapping tersely on the table and glancing around the room like something might jump him unexpectedly. The kid looked like death warmed over. It was likely he was dealing with a raging hangover. Lassiter thought with grim satisfaction that he could use that to his own advantage. He made sure to throw the door open with a loud bang when he entered the room, pleased when it made the suspect jump. Schmidt fixed him with a sullen, accusatory look.

“Look I didn’t put a knife on anybody else, just like you wanted. I wasn’t causing any trouble. I thought you were going to let it slide?” His voice wavered as he spoke.

“That was before I found out that you were employed at a little restaurant called The Geek Tavarna.” Lassiter says fixing a cool look on his face. It was show time.

“Yeah I work there sometimes” Schmidt crosses his arms defensively, glancing at O’Hara as though hoping she might intervene.

“Oh yeah?” Lassiter responds condescendingly “How about the night Jason Renault was killed, you work there then?”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that. I liked that old man; he didn’t care if I came into work late on Mondays. What happened to him was messed up, I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“And can you tell me why you deliberately avoided my first round of questioning of all Tavarna employees?”

Ruddy just shrugged his eyes fixed firmly on the table. “I was out of town”

“Oh out of town? That’s believable! You know what it looks like to me?” Lassiter said sternly, circling the table and pausing just long enough that Ruddy looked up in curiosity.

“Guilt.”

“Whatever you think I did, I promise it isn’t true. Ask my dad!’”

Lassiter ignored him

“Were you on shift the night Renault was murdered?”

Schmidt hesitated before he spoke, he eyed O’Hara again who was leaning against the wall watching them silently. Maybe Schmidt hoped she would step in and start playing good cop. That ship had sailed right out the door with his father. When she offered no sign of intervening he looked back at Lassiter.

“I’m not talking to you, I want your friend here, and I’ll talk to him.”

“Excuse me?” Lassiter folded his arms; his jaw was clenched so hard that his words came out slightly muffled.

Schmidt screwed up his face has if he was trying to have an actual coherent intelligent thought.

“That Shane Spencer guy, I want to talk to him.”

Lassiter narrowed his eyes dangerously. He didn’t need to look back at O’Hara to know that she was suddenly trying to hide her smirk _why was this his goddamn life?_

Despite his best efforts his voice still came out strained

“Shawn Spencer?”

“Oh. Yeah Him!” Schmidt mimicked Lassiter’s defensive posture looking a little more confident.

“The man you held at knife point?” Lassiter enunciated slowly hoping that it might make Schmidt rethink his move. After all Shawn could come to his senses and finally press charges. _One could only hope._

“Yeah” Schmidt instead had the audacity to smile. It was a nauseating sight, mostly because the man was still a concerning shade of green.

“That’s not possible” Lassiter dismissed. He wasn’t about to play into the sick demands of a suspected criminal.

“Thought you guys were tight? He’s a cop too isn’t he?”

“No!” Lassiter snaps 

“No you aren’t tight or no he isn’t a cop? You looked pretty familiar at that fair.”

“Spencer is not an officer, he does not work for this department.” Lassiter insists, refusing to stoop low enough to petulantly add _and we are not ‘tight.’_

“Well actually” O’Hara speaks up. _Damn it._

Lassiter spins around and raises a finger at her “No, O’Hara!”

She gives him an annoyed look that tells him he’s probably buying the next round of coffees.

“Spencer does occasionally do work for this department, he’s our psychic consultant. We can bring him in if you agree to divulge information worth our time.” She steps forward so she is shoulder to shoulder with Lassiter and pins the suspect with her own stern gaze. It didn’t look like she was in the mood to play nice cop any more today. “Any sign that you are resisting questioning or withholding information and he’s gone again do you understand?

Schmidt looks annoyingly delighted with this development.

“A Psychic? I used to have an uncle who was psychic. He was part of the reason the family business did so well. I knew there was something about that guy. He can get me off the hook.”

If Lassiter’s opinion of Schmidt could have been lowered any further, the fact that the man actually believed in and respected psychics would have done it.

“Is that so?” He gripes sarcastically before turning and shooting an aggrieved look at his partner, “O’Hara, can I speak with you for a moment?” 

Once back in the observation room he turns on her “What are you doing? We don’t cater to the inane whims of suspected criminals. He’s obviously got a screw loose.”

“The suspect has information, all I’m doing is utilizing our resources to extract the information as quickly as possible.“ She says in a voice that borders on stern. “Besides, Schmidt looks like he’s about to throw up all over the interrogation table. It’s better if we get this over with quickly, Shawn is good at sensing this kind of stuff.” She glances at the two-way mirror, at Schmidt who is trying to mop the sweat off his brow with the edge of his shirtsleeve. “Are you sure he’s just hung over?” she asks

Lassiter mulls over her words grumpily. Seeing Spencer again would be embarrassing but he was having trouble shutting out the persistent part of his brain that _wanted_ to see him. It was a tangled thought that he didn’t have time to unpick. Yet this hardly counted as a social visit. This was work and he was a professional, and Spencer wasn’t going to stand in the way of him being good at his job.

“Fine” he concedes in a voice that implied it had been his idea all along “call him but be quick about it”

*

“Shawn, get up off the couch!”

“Don’t wanna” Shawn whines rolling off his stomach to peer blearily at Gus. The man had obviously just come off his route. Shawn gives him a dirty look.

“If you were going to stop for a froyo before coming here you could have at least brought me some.”

“How did you-“ Gus rolls his eyes “Whatever Shawn, you’ve lost froyo privileges remember?”

Shawn sits up so fast he gets a little dizzy from the blood rush. He hugs a pillow to his chest and gives Gus a look of exasperated betrayal.

“How have I lost froyo privileges? That’s not a thing!”

“Well I only bring fro to people who are _working_.”

“First of all that’s like against Genovia convention or something. Second of all I have been working my _ass_ off.”

“You’re thinking of the Geneva Convention and no its not Shawn, you haven’t done a damn thing since you got wailed on by a Grease extra.”

“The guy was twice my size. Where has sympathy Gus gone? I miss him.”

“He packed up and left when you started watching Grease on loop and went on insane rants about how love is a sham. Which is weird because usually you’re too caught up in Olivia Newton-John’s leather pants number to care about anything else in that movie.”

Shawn tries to throw a pillow at Gus but it misses and knocks a novelty action figure off his desk instead.

“That’s not right, I still maintain that I could pull off that outfit just as well if not _better_ than Olivia can.”

“Shawn I am not having that discussion again. Stop trying to distract me from the fact that you’re sulking like a thirteen year old instead of investigating.”

“I’m not sulking Gus, I’m mooning its completely different. Mooning is more masculine.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Agree to disagree” he replies indifferently

Gus sighs, Shawn was settling down into a long sulk, if he doesn’t tread carefully there would be no pulling him out of it.

“Fine I’ll bite. What investigating have you been doing?” 

Shawn jumps up suddenly, a glint in his eye as he motions for Gus to toss him the cordless phone. 

Gus scoffs “You know the cocky posturing is a lot more effective when you don’t have a Dorito dust mustache.” He throws the phone at Shawn with much better aim than Shawn had previously displayed with the pillow.

It’s only because Shawn is expecting it that he manages to catch the phone being aimed directly at his head. He fixes Gus with an even cockier grin as he punches the buttons. He takes a moment to recall the scrawl on the back of the photograph in his memory. Before he hits the last digit the first few bars of _Lets get physical_ stared to play from Shawn’s back pocket.

“Huh” Shawn says abandoning the office phone in favor of his mobile and glancing down at the caller ID “That was anticlimactic” He answers the interrupting cell-phone with a cheery “Hey Jules.” 

Gus smirks “Yeah right! You didn’t have anything.”

Shawn sticks his tongue out at Gus who he thinks was being an incorrigible party pooper. “Did too” he snarked. Then to Juliet “Sorry Jules I was just comforting Gus, he’s very upset about that time Susie Summers broke up with him in high school because he wet the bed. I know, I keep telling him it was a long time ago but he walked passed someone with a perm today and he thought it was her, you know how emotional he gets.”

_“Shawn”_ Gus snaps lunging for the phone “stop talking, I did not wet the bed in high school, you know that was just a rumor Ed Thompson started because he had a crush on Suzie too.” He lunges for the phone again as Shawn skitters out of the way, climbing onto an armchair to get out of Gus’s reach.

“Ok Jules, we’ll be there,” he says in a singsong voice hanging up before Gus could take the phone and grinning triumphantly from atop his chair. That was until Gus retorted

“If you think I’m driving you to the station after that, you are out of your damn mind. You just told Juliet a level five best friend secret ”

“Oh come on” Shawn protests as Gus storms out of their little office “I was just kidding, Gus? Gus!”

There was no reply. Shawn scamperes after him thinking there was a very real possibility that Gus would drive off without him.

Gus still isn’t talking to him when they arrive at the station. It’s annoying because he knows how much Shawn hates the silent treatment. Shawn breaks away from him when they walk in. It is under the guise of having to pee but mostly he wants to loiter and delay so he can make a satisfyingly dramatic entrance in the interrogation room later. Gus rolls his eyes like he knows exactly what Shawn is doing but separates without comment.

*

“Oh hey Shawn” It was one of the new beat cops, Mikey. Shawn may or may not have struck up several conversations with the guy around the station break room recently, mainly because the man brought in really good doughnuts and Shawn was trying to condition him to always save him the chocolate ones.

And _ok_ he may have flirted once or twice. The guy was cute, in a sweet blonde haired blue-eyed kind of way. He definitely had a thing for blue eyes. Shawn glanced over him appreciatively. It had been a while since he’d seen Mikey but sadly this time he was _sans_ doughnuts so Shawn’s motivation to stop and chat dropped severely.

“Hey” Shawn greets glancing him up and down in case he is somehow hiding the doughnuts out of sight. A look of concern crosses the other man’s face.

“Ouch! What happened to your eye?”

“This Ol’ thing” Shawn waves it away dismissively. The black eye was healing quickly thanks to Gus’s often-unlimited supply of weird medical creams. The bruising had already faded to a splotchy yellow. “I got this valiantly trying to beat a band of Nazi’s to a irreplaceable, semi-religious, slightly cursed artifact which may or may not have been central to their plans of world domination.”

Mike grinned, “Isn’t that just the plot of Raider’s of the lost ark?”

“Note to self” Shawn smiles, “Mikey is an Indiana Jones fan. I _can_ assure you I’m just as sexily proficient with a whip.”

The appreciative smile Mikey returned was hesitant but definitely there. “In that case maybe we could catch up sometime, maybe for coffee and a Jones Marathon after?”

Uh oh.

Shawn hadn’t really considered how much he actually liked Mikey outside of the fun flirty conversations. The first time he had trifled with the man it was because Lassiter had been in the room and Shawn had wanted to see if he could get a reaction. It had definitely snowballed. On the other hand Mikey was cute and it had been a while since he’d had good sex. On the other, _other_ hand if he hooked up with Mikey and it ended badly the months of work he had put into his doughnut scheme will have been for nothing.

“Shawn? Uh Shawn? Is everything ok? Are you having a vision?”

“Huh?” Shawn said realizing he had been staring into space. He cleared his throat; one of the perks of being a fake psychic was always having an excuse for that sort of thing.

“Yeah, vision.” He says lamely. “Important case stuff, I better go. Rain check?”

“Oh. Sure…” Mike looked flustered and caught off guard but Shawn was already taking his leave. He had probably left Jules waiting long enough.

*

Shawn freezes, his plans for a dramatic entrance momentarily forgotten. Gus is already getting the lowdown from Jules but that is not what has caught his attention.

Lassie is leaning against the two-way mirror. He has his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up. He looks good despite all the subtle suggestions of distress he is displaying. The set of his shoulders are tense and he has dark circles under his eyes like he hasn’t slept much. He is chewing gum, which Shawn knows he does either because he is stressed or because he is trying to appear aloof. His arms are folded and he is talking quietly and seriously with the other two.

Jules is jotting notes down on a pad of paper. She flips it closed noticing him in the doorway but Shawn has already caught a glimpse of the words _missing shift log, potentially tampered with, investigate further._ Even as he takes that piece of information in his brain still stutters around on a loop. _Damn eidetic memory._ Without him asking it to his mind recalls the feeling of Lassie’s hand on his jaw, the way he brushed a thumb gently over his cheek like he thought Shawn wouldn’t notice. The touch had made a pleasant tingle erupt across his skin which had felt so nice in contrast to the throb of pain he’d been experiencing. Lassie’s eyes had been so blue that night, so, so blue and- _wait a second._

There was something in the background, over Lassie’s shoulder. Something he hadn’t noticed before because he had been too preoccupied. He closed his eyes actively trying to recall the memory now. There was a car in the periphery just over Lassie’s shoulder. A beat-up green Toyota that looked familiar. It felt important. Shawn placed both hands on his head attempting to focus his memories, flipping back over the last week to place it. He realizes too late that it inadvertently looks like he is about to have a vision.

“Shawn?” Jules calls “What is it?”

Still overturning memories he holds up a hand, not even bothering to come up with some kind of whimsical reply. Even so he hears Gus mutter one for him.

“He’s in a deep spiritual trance, it’s very tricky to navigate so he’s going to need total silence.”

“Oh what a crock of-” Lassie grumbled followed quickly by Jules’ admonishment

“Carlton, be quiet!”

Shawn stills when he lands on a memory of Ashley, walking into the Psych office for the first time. He narrows in on the cars across the street, the direction she had been walking from. It’s the same green Toyota.

Ashley had been at the same bar as Ruddy that night?

But she hadn’t. Shawn would have noticed her.

He rolls his memory back again, combing through the night with a fine toothcomb. What did that expression even mean? Why did combs have teeth? _Damn_ He was getting distracted. He clicked his tongue in annoyance at his own tangent. The sport bar! Ashley hadn’t been there but her car had been. So what did that tell him?

With an annoyed huff Shawn let his memories go and opened his eyes. Everyone was staring at him. _Oh right._ That little display had lacked any of his usual fanfare. Shawn lurched forward suddenly, snatching the notepad out of Jules’ hands and swiftly plucking a pen from the pocket of Lassie’s shirt. He flips to a new page and closes his eyes again jolting as if he’s not in control of his own body. He jerks his hand across the page writing down the number plate he remembers and then throws the pen across the room with a flourish, pretending to catch his breath. It’s not the most award worthy performance he’s ever given but it does the job. 

Jules gingerly takes the note from him and reads the numbers and letters aloud. Lassiter snatches the paper before she even stops speaking and stares at the scrawl. “A number plate? What the hell does that have to do with anything Spencer? You know what? It doesn’t matter. The reason you’re here is to make that jackass talk and nothing else, so skip to it because I don’t have all day.”

Juliet steals the paper back. “I’m going to run this through the system, see if anything comes up.”

Lassiter opens his mouth to reply

“Don’t argue with me Carlton,” She says before he can speak and leaves the room with a purposeful stride.

“Wasn’t going to” Lassiter mutters sheepishly before shifting his glare back to Shawn in a way that clearly suggests everything that was happening was his fault. It was easier for Shawn to ground himself in the familiar when Lassie looked at him like that because it made it harder to get distracted by things like his eyes, or his arms, or the line of his jaw.

“Well?” Lassiter goads him impatiently unaware that Shawn was imagining what he might look like with the first button of his shirt undone right now.

“Well” Shawn repeats trying to pull himself back together. “ _Well,_ I don’t know Lassie, I’m not really getting any psychic vibrations from Stabby Mcknife Man.” He waves his hand in the general direction of the two-way mirror where Ruddy is on display. The man in question is pulling at a loose thread in his jeans seemingly unaware or uncaring of the way he’s only serving to make the tear in them bigger. “Unless you consider un-ironically owning a large collection of crocs a relevant and punishable crime, I can’t help you.”

Gus nudges Shawn sharply in the ribs. It is decidedly unhelpful.

“Ow, what the hell Gus?” Shawn complains rubbing his left side. The man has unfairly pointy elbows. Gus gives him a long-suffering look before turning a mask of professionalism onto Lassiter.

“Excuse us,” he says politely “I a need a moment in private to confer with my partner.”

Lassiter seems less than pleased but he gestures impatiently towards the door in a _shoofly_ motion. Gus takes this as an opportunity to drag Shawn backwards out the door and down the hallway to confer in private.

“What the hell Shawn” He whispers angrily

Shawn is too busy theatrically wincing “do you have steel-capped elbows? Is that some kind of weird low-grade genetic mutation you never told me about?”

“Don’t joke about the X-men right now! If you go in there and talk to that guy, we _officially_ become considered for consultation! You know what that means?” Gus quickly cuts across Shawn who has opened his mouth looking like he is about to argue something nonsensical. “It means we get paid son!”

“But I don’t _need_ to talk to that guy, I’ve already talked to him. And I just did a thingy, with the pen and everything.”

“Don’t argue semantics with me right now Shawn”

Shawn’s mouth twists around the word _semantics_ disbelievingly and he rolls his eyes at the look he gets in return “Fine! I’ll go…talk or whatever”

He takes a few seconds to muster up some enthusiasm. He really isn’t looking forward to entering a room with a guy that looks like a Shaun of the Dead extra. He turns and whispers in Gus’s ear “dude does it look like Ruddy’s got Zombie cooties or what?”

Gus takes a second to seriously consider it. His reply is completely unhelpful “Just don’t get too close.”

Shaking off his annoyance at Gus’s uninspiring advice Shawn waltzes into the room. If nothing else he figures that playing the exuberant psychic card will at least be a good way to get under Lassiter’s skin. Lassie deserves it; he seems to have no trouble getting under Shawn’s lately. And that upset the natural order of things.

“Ruddy” Shawn says breezily, he flips the chair around so he can sit in it backwards like he has seen it done in the episode of NCIS he had watched last night. Unfortunately he misjudges the swing and instead the chair topples over, slamming down hard onto his toes. Shawn skids backwards with a yelp clutching his foot and jumping up and down for good measure.

“Aren’t you supposed to be able to tell the future?” Ruddy says suspiciously.

Shawn freezes still holding his right foot. “It’s not exactly a precise science”

He’s miffed by the unimpressed look Ruddy is giving him. This was one of the reasons why he never did second dates. He could practically hear Lassiter laughing at him behind the mirror, which was very counter-productive to the Plan TM. 

“Are the cops serious?” Ruddy scoffs quickly loosing the air of amazement Shawn had worked so hard to cultivate the other night. “There is no way you’re legit! My Uncle Urwin would never have done something like that. He would have seen the chair was going to fall and moved out of the way.”

Yep. Lassiter was totally going to have a field day with that one.

Shawn stopped holding his foot and glared at Ruddy. In his opinion the dude didn’t exactly have much room to talk, he looked like he was secretly hiding a deadly monster bite. Maybe it wasn’t zombies, maybe it was a vampire or something.

“Well I’m pretty sure the name Urwin is illegal in most states of America so I wouldn’t brag about that if I were you.” Shawn says, trying to edge backwards without seeming too obvious about it. Something is telling him he needs to get out of range. “And I don’t know how psychics do it in flake-ville but here at the SBPD we have a little something called _class_. I’m certified Jack! I’ve solved over a hundred unsolvable cases and the spirit of _Jason Renault_ would like to know…” Shawn holds a hand up to his temple for dramatic effect noticing the way Rudy tenses in anticipation.

It wasn’t the harried kind of anticipation, the kind people got when they feared that they were about to be incriminated. It was the excited kind, like Ruddy thought Shawn was about to reveal something that would clear his name. The man’s hand comes up briefly to brush against his shirt. Shawn traces the movement; Ruddy is wearing a brown leather cord around his neck that dips under his shirt. The shape Ruddy makes with his fingers when he brushes against it makes Shawn think it is small and round in shape. He flips back through his memories again looking for another glimpse of the necklace. Ruddy had been wearing it both in the bar and at the fair but that little detail hadn’t really seemed important before now. He remembers the way Lassiter had tackled Ruddy into the grass that first day. There had been a flash of silver under the collar of his shirt as it had been jostled out of place. With a spark of sudden awareness Shawn realizes what it was. He closes his eyes and lurches and forward.

“Who gave you that sweet statement piece hanging around your neck?”

He opens his eyes. Ruddy did look stricken then, and probably due to surprise more than anything else he answers.

“My girlfriend”

Except Ruddy didn’t have a girlfriend. He had an Ex girlfriend. An Ex girlfriend who was dating a girl that Ruddy was harassing. The logbook at the Greek Tavarna had been tampered with, Ruddy hadn’t been working that night, but he had been _supposed_ to. Shawn lit up. Several pieces clicked into place.

“Thanks!” Shawn says cheerfully, dropping his dramatic demeanor and heading for the door “I’ll see you around”

Ruddy looks simultaneously relieved that Shawn hadn’t followed up on his unexpected line of questioning and panicked that he was leaving.

“Wait!” he cries standing up quickly, the action seems to pain him, and he slumps back against the chair. “You have to help me! You have to tell them I didn’t do it! If you’re really psychic then you know!”

“Don’t worry” Shawn says without looking back “I suspect you’ll be outta here faster than a Jackie Chan fight scene.”

He didn’t pause to clarify Ruddy’s question about how long that was supposed to be. Once he is out of the room Shawn starts to bounce up and down on his toes. It takes a few seconds to tamp down on the impulse. He still needs to put a few more puzzle pieces in place.

“What the hell was that Spencer?” Lassiter asks when Shawn reenters the observation room to collect Gus. Shawn could see Lassie had been pinching the bridge of his nose a lot while he’d been observing the interrogation, judging from the red marks left there.

“Sorry Lassie, I can’t give away the end of the episode _just_ yet.” He says gleefully, tugging Gus on the arm to indicate they should make a speedy exit. Gus glances at the stony look on Lassiter’s face and heeds Shawn, quickly exiting the room. Shawn is a step behind him and almost makes it out. Until he feels Lassiter grab him by the neck of his shirt and yank him swiftly backwards.

“A moment of your precious time?” he says scathingly, snapping the door shut on Gus and not bothering to wait for an answer. Although as the door closes Shawn hears Gus mumble something about meeting him at the car. 

“Someone ate his Wheaties this morning.” Shawn says rubbing the back of his neck as he regains his balance. He wasn’t appreciating the list of minor injuries he seemed to be accumulating on this case. “You know a simple _please_ will pretty much get me in any position you want me Lassie, there’s no need to use excessive force. I’m starting to think you have a weird kink for it.”

As he had hoped, sexualizing the situation puts Lassiter slightly off his guard although it doesn’t last nearly as long as he would have liked.

“Enough! What the hell? You asked that nut job _one_ question, what am I supposed to do with that?”

Shawn folds his arms “Am I supposed to do this part of your job now too?” he adopts a condescending tone as if he’s talking to a toddler “You see Lassie detectives usually do this thing where they collect evidence and then- get this- they _draw conclusions_ from it. I know it might be a lot to wrap your head around at first but you should give it a try sometime.”

_There_ was the all too familiar anger bubbling under the surface, so much easier to handle. Shawn lets his body go lax, bracing for the slam into the wall. But Lassie doesn’t make another move towards him. His blue eyes are bright with anger but they are also calculating in a way Shawn doesn’t often see from him. It kind of short-circuits his breathing for a second. Lassie was analyzing him. 

“You don’t have any idea what real detectives do Spencer.” The line was delivered much more smoothly than Shawn would have liked and Lassiter still hadn’t put his hands on him. He hated it when Lassiter managed to surprise him. And by hate Shawn meant that a thrill went through his body that made him tingle right down to his toes. Lassiter had been surprising him a lot lately.

“Careful Lassie” Shawn says cursing his voice for sounding uneven “When you look at me like that, I don’t know whether you want to kill me or kiss me and I’d rather not risk the odds like that again.”

“I’m not sure which it is either” the admission was quiet, barley audible but Shawn definitely hears it. He openly stares at Lassiter now. The man has his hands curled into fists and a muscle is working in his jaw. Now there is a desperate, confused look simmering in his eyes like he doesn’t know what is happening or what to do about it. Shawn sympathizes; he doesn’t know what is happening either. All his senses are telling him to get out of this small, confined, too hot room before it is too late.

“Well when you figure it out…” Shawn says uneasily “Let me know” he steps backwards groping for the door handle, never one to deny his impulse to flee.

Lassiter steps forward and grabs the edge of his sleeve to stop him slipping away. Shawn stills trying really hard to look unaffected and not like a rabbit caught in headlights.

Lassiter appears to be similarly bracing himself “Does that mean…are you serious?” he asks clearing his throat “about this?”

“This?” Shawn echoes unhelpfully.

Lassiter still has his shirtsleeve in his grasp. His fingers tighten in the fabric. Shawn always thought he had nice fingers, nice fingers and steady hands. Shawn’s gaze flickers upward, and strong arms and good shoulders. His ears kind of stuck out but all that made Shawn want to do was tug on them, and see what kind of response he got in return. He lets go of the door handle. Lassie is closer than he initially realizes, but he holds still. He isn’t going to try anything so soon after the first disaster.

Lassiter’s hand shifts so it wraps wholly around his wrist. And now Shawn is pretty sure Lassiter can feel his pulse jackhammering under his fingers, which definitely ruins the unaffected vibe he was going for.

“Spencer, please”

Damn Lassie for using his earlier words against him like that and not even half as facetiously as he should have. 

“I don’t know” the words came out of Shawn’s mouth unbidden. They were terrible words and didn’t fall into either of the two categories Shawn had been considering.

Category A included trying to make Lassiter angry again, so he could push him away. Category B included trying to kiss him and hoping it lead somewhere a little more lucrative than last time.

_I don’t know_ was not a category, _I don’t know_ was too honest. Shawn did not build his life around _I don’t knows_. He felt like he was in the worst game of jeopardy of his life.

“You don’t know” Lassiter repeats, his voce is half incredulous and half resigned. “Of course you don’t”

_Typical fucking Lassie_ Shawn thinks, annoyed that his rare, albeit unintentional vulnerability is being so quickly dismissed. 

“Well what about you?” He challenges making Lassiter take a step back in surprise. “What do _you_ think this is? Why is the proverbial ball always in my court? You know if Annie and Liam in 90210 taught us anything it’s that sexual tension is a two way street.”

Lassiter narrows his eyes “What the hell do you expect me to do Spencer? How am I supposed to know this isn’t just some huge joke on your part?”

“Joke?” Shawn laughs, but it’s short, more out of surprise than anything else. “What is that supposed to mean? What would be the punch line?”

Lassiter rocks back on his heels looking guarded, uneasy and slightly mollified.

Shawn feels disappointment settle further in his gut the longer Lassiter’s silence holds.

“If you don’t mind, _detective_ I think I’ll be going _”_ Shawn says, using the fact that he seemed to have broken the software inside Lassiter’s brain to finally make his escape.

*

He’s more annoyed than he would usually be to see that Gus was not waiting by the car like he promised, but instead schmoozing with Jules at her desk. That wasn’t right. Schmoozing was Shawn’s job. He regretted stepping close enough to hear the conversation

“You know I had Lynda Carter’s autograph once” Gus was saying in his _‘smooth playa’_ voice.

“No way!” Jules leans over her desk; excitedly peering at whatever Gus was showing her on his phone. “What happened to it?”

Shawn clears his throat before Jules could here the Lynda Carter story. He had a feeling that Gus might be trying to get back at him for the bedwetting thing.

“Oh hey Shawn” Jules says thankfully forgetting the tangent as soon as she catches his eye. Gus looks extremely disappointed. 

“I ran the plates. They belong to someone called Emily Prior, I haven’t had much of a chance to look over her file yet.”

_Because Gus is all over you with his comic book anecdotes_ Shawn thinks.

“So far it doesn’t seem like she’s racked up more than a few parking fines.” Juliet continues “Sorry Shawn, I’m not really seeing a connection to our murder victim. I don’t think she knew Renault at all”

_Because Renault wasn’t supposed to be the murder victim_

Shawn smiles at her. That was the biggest piece of the puzzle. It was also a welcome reminder that his goal here actually had nothing to do with Lassiter. He had a job to do.

“Keep looking into it Jules!” He says brightly “I have a really strong vibe about Emily Prior.”

“Ok” Juliet replies bemused as she watches Shawn drag Gus away from her desk and towards the exit. The pair starts up a string of inaudible bickering.

“Thanks Jules!” Shawn sings over Gus’ complaints as he goes “Bye Jules!”

*

Once in the parking lot Shawn snags Gus’ keys and jumps into the driver’s seat, revving the engine unnecessarily until Gus slides into the passenger side.

“Will you cut that out” Gus protests “You know this is a company car. And you better tell me what is going on. I ended my route early today for this.”

“I’ll nutshell it on the way Buddy” Shawn promises as he peels out of the parking lot.

“On the way to where?” Gus asks suspicious but content enough to lean back into his seat and pull a packet of Twizzlers out of a hidden compartment.

“Dude!” Shawn exclaims reaching over and hoping to nab some licorice. His hand is quickly slapped away.

“Both Hands on the wheel!” Gus demands, “If you crash this car you pay the damages.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with this, it means a lot! Please feel free to give feedback. 
> 
> I'll see you in the next instalment of Shawn and Lassie use murder investigations to distract themselves from gay yearning.


	7. Fast and Fondue: Triple choc-chip pancake palooza

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I just want to thank everyone so much for the kudos and comments, they've really kept be sane while trying to write this damned chapter. I had so much freaking trouble with it. But it's finished and its here for your viewing pleasure, let me know what you think!

Lassiter needs to think. He hands the suspect over to O’Hara. He needs to think and he needs to shoot stuff.

The gun range downstairs is mercifully empty. With practiced familiarity Lassiter has his earplugs in, his protective glasses on and the firm weight of a gun in his hand.

_Spencer was an asshole_

Bang. The slam of the recoil was a welcome feeling. The bullet sailed through the air and tore through the target’s right shoulder.

_All he had needed was a damn confession_

Bang. Another bullet in the left shoulder

_For Schmitt to admit he was at the crime scene. For Spencer to give him a straight answer for once._

Bang. Bang. Two bullets in the skull.

_He knew Schmitt was involved somehow, his earlier desire to just nail the guy, had given way to genuine suspicion. The employee log claimed he had been working a shift that night. He had signed in. He hadn’t been in Lassiter’s initial round of interviews. So he was hiding something. Lassiter could read guilt all over the creep._

_Of course Spencer had been cocky and obstructive as usual._

Bang. The stomach.

_Except there was a moment in the observation room before he had slipped into his usual flowery façade. He had gone still in a way that Lassiter didn’t often see from him. That moment had felt more solid and more believable than anything that came afterwards. There was something niggling in the back of Lassiter’s mind that told him that moment had been important._

Lassiter considers his next target carefully. Even now in the blessedly empty gun range Lassiter can’t figure out why he is once again obsessing over Spencer instead of the murder case in front of him. The initial hit of relief that had washed over him at Spencer’s appearance was frankly embarrassing. He had actively had to stop himself from asking questions about Spencer’s obviously healing injury like some deranged wet nurse.

He checks his clip. One bullet left. His private exchange with Spencer plays through his head. Lassiter knows how to read nervous ticks; it’s an essential interrogation skill. And for once Spencer – confident, cocky, self-assured Spencer was _nervous._ If Spencer had been a suspect on the other side of an interrogation table Lassiter would have felt certain that meant he was about to close in on a confession.

_Had he been about to close in on a confession?_

He can still recall the rapid beat of Shawn’s pulse under his fingers. It was hard to fake something like that. Did that prove Spencer was genuine?

_What would be the punch line?_

Lassiter wasn’t sure he knew the answer anymore.

He pulls the trigger. Bang. The bullet tears right through the heart. 

*

Shawn takes his sports illustrated binoculars out of his pocket and peers through the widow of the Italian restaurant, slouching low in the Blueberry’s passenger seat to minimize his chances of being seen. The car is parked on the other side of the street but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to spot. Gus however is taking no such precaution. Light was leeching out of the sky, it was almost dark and Ashley’s shift ended soon. Oblivious to the suspenseful mood, Gus is loudly checking his emails on his phone.

“Can you believe Dr. Heinz is trying to pull out of my route? He’s been a regular for years; this is because of the fiasco with that new postnatal depression drug. I told him we’vebeen getting positive results in the clinical trails but did he listen?”

“Dude this is a stakeout” Shawn complains, “You’re being totally obvious”

“Ashley is a lovely person, and technically our client, I will not stake her out Shawn. And another thing, I’m of the personal opinion this whole sideshow isn’t getting us anywhere. The murder victim was Renault. He didn’t even know any of these people. Lassiter was right the first time, we should be looking into his business dealings.”

Shawn gives a long-suffering sigh. He punches Gus on the arm for his lack of cooperation and receives a slap to the side of his head in retaliation.

“Ow, that was way harder than I hit you” Shawn hisses. “What if I told you Renault wasn’t the murder victim” 

“Really?” Gus says with faux enthusiasm, not even bothering to look back up from his phone. “Let me just notify his grieving family real quick, apparently they’ve hallucinated the whole thing.” 

Shawn scoffed; it was really hard to focus on the important lurking he was doing when Gus was being a box of stale bagels.

“Ok dude, what if I told you Renault wasn’t _supposed_ to be the murder victim.” Shawn amends. He throws the binoculars down in frustration. He didn’t know why he kept insisting on using them because they _sucked._

“I’d say that you should start explaining because you’re starting to sound like a crazy person.”

Shawn abandons his slouching and turns to face Gus excitedly. “Renault owns the Greek Tavarna right? Except I checked him out, guy is cleaner than a new penny.”

“Actually most etymologists agree that the idiom ‘as clean as a new penny’ is-”

“Gus, for the love of Kilmer! I am trying to nutshell!”

“Fine” Gus says looking slightly disappointed

“As I was saying. Renault, literally no one has motive on this guy and this was a calculated murder. So what gives? Rhetorical question!” Shawn says because Gus looks like he wants to interrupt again. “It’s the employee log. It’s been altered, for whatever reason Renault was in the wrong place at the wrong time and BAM.” Shawn slams his fist down into the palm of his hand to indicate gratuitous violence.

“Ok for the sake of the argument I’ll agree. If Renault wasn’t supposed to be the victim who was?” 

“Ruddy” Shawn says this so confidently it kind of makes Gus want to smack him again.

“Ook. And what about motive? If anything, Ruddy being the victim makes this harder. I could think of loads of people that might want that guy dead. Hell, I’d even put Lassiter in the top ten.”

“Emily Prior. She’s currently doing the horizontal mambo with Ashley on the down low, right? But before that…” Shawn pauses, this time encouraging Gus to jump in.

“…Single?” Gus tries.

Shawn clicks his tongue.

_“No._ She was getting jiggy with Ruddy, for a minimum of at least nine months. They end it. Ruddy doesn’t take it well, he start’s harassing Emily’s new ladylove. BAM!” He throws his hand down again with a little more emphasis making Gus jump slightly. “Emily has enough. She makes an attempt on his life, planning on making it look like a botched robbery, doesn’t realize the work shifts have been switched up and offs the wrong guy.” Shawn grins in satisfaction waiting for Gus’s excitement to sink in.

“Let me get this straight” Gus says slowly “You’re accusing this woman, whom you have never met by the way, of murder…because her ex is a douchebag?”

“ _Well”_ Shawn scoffs “it sounds bad when you say it like that, but dude you’re going to have to trust me. I feel this in my gut ok? We have to check this girl out.”

“We’ve definitely done worse for less” Gus sighs. “Just so you know I’m not going to be involved when you tell Ashley you think her girlfriend is a crazy murderer.”

“I wouldn’t say she’s a _crazy_ murderer” Shawn defends “Not necessarily”

Do you even know what this girl looks like?”

“Sure” Shawn visualizes the photograph he had found in Ruddy’s wallet. “Short strawberry blonde hair, cute in a young Alyson Hannigan kind of way, brown eyes, and an adorable little mole on her left shoulder.”

“Uh huh” Gus says pointing through the windscreen at a harried looking woman who was entering the Italian restaurant. “Kind of like her?”

“Dude” Shawn says scrambling for his binoculars again “That _is_ her!”

“How did you know she was going to show up?” Gus asked 

“She may be under the impression Ashley wants to meet after work.” Shawn shrugs. He can just make out the pair in the front of the restaurant, neither of them looks very happy. Shawn is pretty sure they’re arguing. “Huh, doesn’t exactly scream happily ever after. I guess murder can put a strain on any relationship.”

They tail Emily’s green Toyota for about forty-five minutes before anything interesting happens. She eventually pulls into a residential street much to Shawn’s relief. When she turns into a neat, cream coloured driveway he relaxes further. As she parks he can see a daycare pamphlet resting on the dash and a baby seat affixed in the back. He’s relieved to finally have a destination; he thought he might have gone insane if he had to watch her argue about late fees at a video rental store any longer.

“What are you doing?” Gus asks as Shawn drives away from the house.

“Only needed the address” Shawn says slowing a little as a lady in her mid fifties runs after a small fluffy dog that’s slipped it’s lead. Not many people walk their dogs this late.

“Shawn I am not coming back here with you later tonight to break and enter some rich white woman’s house. They’re going to call the cops on my ass in minutes”

Shawn doesn’t reply too busy watching the dog. It looked like it was seconds away from- yep. Shawn slams on the breaks completely coming to a stop in the middle of the road. They were only a block away from where Emily’s Green Toyota currently resides. The dog zips across the road fearlessly, unaware how close it came to being pancaked under the blue echo’s wheels. The glow of the streetlights illuminates the street pretty well so it’s easy for Shawn to slip out of the drivers seat and head the dog off. He scoops it up into his arms before it can get any further. The owner is up to him a minute later, sweaty and breathless.

“Oh thank god!” She pants clutching a stich in her side. “Thank you!”

“No problem” Shawn smiles, transferring the wriggling ball of fluff into her arms. The nametag reads: Mr. Wiggles, Shawn thinks it’s an apt description. 

“No really, thank you! He keeps escaping from the front yard. I don’t think I could have caught up to him this time if you hadn’t stepped in…Mister?”

“Oh Mister nothing” he waves her off “Call me Shawn” he gives her a quick apprising glace over as he says it. She looks like she belongs on an episode of desperate housewives.

“Shawn” She extends the arm that isn’t grappling with Mr. Wiggles for him to shake. “I’m Prudence Prior. I don’t think I’ve seen you around before?”

Shawn grins a little wider; Gus might not have to play the Harry Lyme to his Marv Merchants after all. He tries to affect the humble but exhausted air he’s seen on many parents before, mostly in sitcoms. 

“You wouldn’t be related to Emily Prior would you?” he asks hesitantly

“I am. How do you know my daughter?” Her smile was still polite but her eyes now raked over him suspiciously.

“Oh I don’t” Shawn assured her “Not personally. We have the same daycare. _Little Robins._ I’ve been meaning to introduce myself but you know how it is, kids keep you so busy. She brought lemon squares in for our Kevin’s birthday last week and I’ve been meaning to thank her.” He nudges and winks playfully “and get the recipe. It’s incredible.”

Prudence’s body langue relaxes again, categorising him as _safe_ “How lovely” She exclaims “I’ve been on and on to Emmie about the importance of setting up play dates with other parents, that girl really needs to broaden her circles.”

Shawn nods and flips a hand back to gesture to Gus who is still firmly seated in the passenger seat of the Blueberry. “I know how that goes, I’ve been telling my partner Ricardo Milos over here the same thing.” He raises his voice slightly as he says it, hoping Gus will catch his meaning, loosely it was something like ‘ _get your ass over here right now and back me up’._ Thankfully Gus interprets some version of the message because he gets out of the car and politely offers Prudence his hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He says in his pharmaceutical sales voice. Prudence seems to react well to it. _Time for phase two of this little improve scene_ Shawn thinks. He loops his arms around Gus’s waist. To his credit Gus handles it a little better than Lassie did but that was probably because he was more experienced at rolling with Shawn’s punches, rolling with them and then flinging them back twice as hard when they were back at the psych office. Shawn could already hear him

_I know what you were trying to do; you thought that would throw me off the whole Lassiter thing. You’re so transparent. Well too bad I’m still going to go on an uptight lecture about you’re big gay crush on Lassie anyway._

Ok so Shawn might be paraphrasing a little bit but he was sure some version of that conversation was ticking away in Gus’s head right now.

“You too,” Prudence says extending her free hand delicately. That was one hell of a rock on her left hand. “Erm, Mr. Milos was it?”

“Actually Prue to expand my answer on your previous question,” Shawn interjects before Gus could kick up a fuss about his chosen alias “Ricardo and I are hoping to move into this neighborhood soon, its gorgeous and we want to upgrade for little Kevin’s sake.” Shawn watches Prudence’s reactions carefully as he speaks. She hasn’t shown any negative reaction to his implication that he and Gus are together, there is a good chance she is already aware of her daughter’s current preferences. 

“How lovely! This is a beautiful community, why don’t you boys stop by for tea tomorrow afternoon?” She gives Shawn a small grin “I may even be able to dig out that old lemon square recipe you were after.”

Shawn gasps in faux delight and turns to Gus. “Oh that sounds marvelous! Doesn’t it Honey? You’re parents can babysit Kevin for a few hours tomorrow right?”

“I don’t see why not,” Gus agrees, still definitely in pharmaceutical sales mode “how does 2.pm sound?”

“Perfect” she rattles off an address and gives them both another warm handshake before biding them farewell still doing her best to coracle Mr. Wiggles as she goes.

*

Lassiter doesn’t think he’s been in the gun range very long. He’s feeling a lot more in control and ready to go back up stairs for another round of questioning, but before he even has his safety goggles all the way off a harried black and white is calling for him.

“What is it?” he snaps, the man is familiar but his name evades Lassiter.

“Sorry Sir” the cop replies clearly panicked “Detective O’Hara says she needs you back upstairs immediately, apparently there’s a problem with your suspect.”

“On it” Lassiter assures him, holstering his gun. It might just be his natural proclivity towards pessimism but he has a bad feeling. 

The bullpen is loud and chaotic but O’Hara finds him quickly.

“Carlton we have a problem.” She says looking pained as she leads him to the holding cell. Lassiter’s stomach drops. In the cell, surrounded by uniforms is the cold unmoving body of Rudolph Schmidt 

*

“How does a murder suspect just drop dead in a holding cell?”

Lassiter wishes it were the opening line to a joke.

The way Chief Vic says it makes it sound like she’s reading his last will and testament. Honestly at this point she may as well be.

He straightens his posture so he’s sitting as rigidly as possible, it’s an attempt to look professional and in control and not like he’s not currently falling apart at the seams. He clears his throat it feels like sandpaper.

“We’re…not exactly sure yet.” He says “But rest assured Chief, we’re doing everything we can. The body is being taken to Woodrow as we speak. We’ll get answers.”

The Chief closes her eyes looking like she’s taking a moment to collect herself and lets out a breath before speaking again.

“It’s a little more complicated than that Lassiter. I have to follow protocol on this; we need to shut down the station. At least until we have some hard facts. I’ve contacted the FBI. They’re sending an agent over tomorrow morning.”

“The FBI?” Lassiter groans “Oh come on Chief! We don’t need those monkey suits crawling all over this case. O’Hara and I have this under control.”

“It’s out of my hands.” The chief snaps, “In case you missed it, a person died in our custody!”

“A scumbag” Lassiter reasons even though guilt starting to gnaw at his stomach. He ignores it. He can’t afford that emotion right now.

“Still a person” the Chief glares at him a little harsher than he thinks is necessary “and I’ll thank you not to parade that attitude in front of the FBI tomorrow.” 

“Yes Chief” Lassiter concedes because frankly she is exuding terrifying energy.

“Now I assume you’ve contacted immediate family members about the situation? The last thing we need on top of this is a lawyer getting involved.”

Lassiter trades a charged look with O’Hara, one that can only be interpreted as

_Oh shit_

_*_

Shawn is feeling pretty good about himself when he and Gus re enter the Psych office later that night. He’s got another lead in the case _and_ he got Gus to admit that objectively speaking The Rock is way hotter than Vin Diesel. Yup, he’s feeling pretty relaxed…that is until a creepy shadowy figure pacing between his and Gus’s desks makes him almost drop his churro. At least he doesn’t scream. Although finding a creepy guy wearing a trench coat in his office after hours probably gives him a free pass on the screaming thing.

“Hey Dr. Malcolm Crowe, we’re closed for the night, how did you get in here” Shawn asks entering the office cautiously. The shadowy man stopped pacing and turned to look at them.

“The door was unlocked,” he said. He didn’t sound very happy about it. In fact he kind of sounded like Henry. Shawn squinted closely at the trench coat to make sure his dad wasn’t somehow concealed in it.

Gus cuffed him on the shoulder. “Stop forgetting to lock the office” he hisses before offering the strange man, old red faced and very familiar now that Shawn can get a good look at him, a seat.

“How can we assist you Mr. Schmidt” Gus says, in Shawn’s opinion being far too polite to a guy that’s lurking in their office after hours. But he realizes simultaneously that this is the Taffy merchant that wouldn’t hand out free in-store samples.

“Actually” Shawn says loudly “I’m afraid we have a strict no assistance policy after dark. Psychics are kind of like gremlins that way. I _can_ suggest the drycleaners down the street. The grouchy Egyptian woman runs a very legitimate Ouija Board business on the side. She can clean your clothes and conjure your ghosts. It’s a two for one special.”

“I should hope you’re busy Psychic. I hired you to figure out who stole my taffy recipe weeks ago and I never got answers. I’m beginning to think you’re a charlatan. They don’t make psychics like they used to.”

“ _Oh!”_ Shawn claps a hand to his forehead like an important memo has slipped his mind; ignoring the daggers Gus was sending him. “Did my secretary not give your secretary the memo? I solved that case ages ago.”

“We don’t have a secretary!” Gus interjects unhelpfully

Shawn turns to him in exasperation. “And whose fault is that Gus? _Whose fault is that_?”

“Look it’s not important!” The trench coat lurker cut in sounding distressed “If you possess even a tenth of the ability that I’ve read about you have to help me!”

His breathing is ragged now and he actually does sit down in the offered chair. “Someone killed-” his voice breaks. He takes a minute to clear his throat and locks eyes with Shawn, his face now awash in anger. “My son has been slain.”

There was a beat of dead silence. It was very dramatic, the low lighting, the late hour and had it just started to rain outside? Shawn’s only critique was, who said slain? If they were on a T.V show the hook-line _‘my son has been murdered’_ would have been the perfect place for a commercial break. Why mess with a classic?

What happens instead of a commercial break is that Shawn’s phone starts obnoxiously blaring the opening bars of _You’re the one that I want._ (Yes he is still hung up on the fact that Gus doesn’t think he can pull off leather pants.)

The silence quickly slides from dramatic to awkward. Shawn presses his lips together trying not to show amusement in front of the obviously distressed client. This was like straight out of a Film Noir flick. But the caller in question had always been good at diverting his attention

“If you’ll excuse me,” Shawn says as smoothly as he can “I have to take this.” He digs his phone out of his jean’s pocket and steps into the other room, subtly indicating to Gus that he should keep an eye on their macabre client. Gus rolls his eyes looking suspicious and unhappy. Shawn makes sure the shutters are closed before he answered the call. He doesn’t think Gus is above eavesdropping.

“Lassie, what’s up?” He’s actively trying not to think about their last conversation.

“Spencer” Lassiter says sounding no less tense than he had earlier. “I need you to meet me.”

“Come again?” Of all the things Shawn thought Lassiter might possibly have to say to him over the phone. That wasn’t it. He was thinking more of the old school, hardball _I demand you outline your sexual intentions Spencer._ Or maybe the more familiar and always entertaining _I’m asking you for the last time, stay off this case!_

“Meet me” Lassiter repeats tersely “Tonight. Now. That 24 hour Diner you like so much.”

“The one that does the novelty pancake stacks?” delight creeps into Shawn’s tone. “You sly dog. You know I can’t say no to a late night pancake rendezvous.”

He was grinning despite himself, imagining the flushed look Lassiter might be sporting. But then he freezes, the phone almost slipping through his fingers as something occurs to him. Most of the time Lassie was _adorably_ tactless…was this? Shawn’s heart skipped. Was Lassie asking him out? Shawn played back their last exchange. He had been pretty convinced that it was a huge nosedive in the romance department. But maybe…

“Spencer” Lassiter said impatiently “are you still there?”

“What? Oh yeah” he replies cursing the fact that he suddenly sounds nervous. What the hell was happening to him? “I’ll meet you” he says cautiously “I just have a thing I have to take care of first.”

“Don’t be too long” was all Lassiter said in response before hanging up.

In the front room Shawn claps his hands together. He notes that Gus has somehow produced tea for the client, most likely an attempt to calm his vindictive rage with chamomile.

“Well my associate seems to have things in order,” he tells them. “I have a…spiritual errand I need to run. If you’ll excuse me.”

Gus gives a forced agreeable laugh for the benefit of their company and requests a _minute alone_ with Shawn in a tightly controlled voice. Shawn winces and heads out the door, he has a slim hope that Gus wont follow him into the rain.

Gus follows him into the rain. They stand on the sidewalk bathed in yellow streetlight. The shower is only light and Shawn figures he can still use his motorcycle without too much inconvenience, it doesn’t look like Gus is in the mood to lend him the Blueberry.

Gus starts his tirade before the door is even all the way closed

“Where are you going? This man has tried hiring us _twice_ now and you’re bailing again? What did Lassiter want?”

“If this is your attempt at twenty questions its supposed to be one question per turn, and its only fun if there is alcohol involved but I’ll play.” Shawn holds up his hand ready to tick each reply off on his fingers.

“I have a hankering for pancakes. I’m not bailing; I’m just temporarily vacating the area. Yes I get it. But if the rich taffy entrepreneur is who I think he is, A.K.A the strict, uncompromising father of Ruddy ‘obvious daddy issues’ Schmidt, then we don’t need him to hire us. If he does we’ve effetely been hired three times for the same case, which I don’t think is legal…wait is it legal? If it is forget I said anything. And Lastly, howd’ya know it was Lassie?”

“Shawn if that’s true then that means you were right, Ruddy’s dead and we were too late to stop it!” Gus replies in a tone that suggests he thinks Shawn is taking the situation too lightly. “As for the Lassiter thing, I’m not an idiot.” He narrows his eyes in suspicion “You’d never go get pancakes this late without me. You’re _meeting_ Lassiter aren’t you? Are you trying to edge me out of the case?”

Shawn shifts his weight from one foot to the other eager to be on his motorbike.

“Gus don’t be the Total Recall remake of course I’m not. Just trust me ok? I know what I’m doing.”

Gus doesn’t look placated. “And what about our noticeably unhinged friend in there?” He jerks his thumb backwards. 

“And I’ll owe you one” he wheedles. 

“Shawn this is serious.”

“Oh come on Gus, he’s like _sixty,_ that tea will knock him out in five minutes flat.”

“It’s chamomile Shawn not chloroform!” He sighs loudly when Shawn resorts to giving him an injured puppy look. 

“Fine. But you owe me _several._ After this case is over I’m cashing in my coupons. We are going to see that new documentary about Pluto at the IMAX”

“Urgh” Shawn lets out a long loud noise of disgust but quickly closes his mouth when it looks like Gus is going to rescind his offer. “I’ll text you,” he promises already clambering onto his bike and fastening his helmet. Gus only spends a few seconds watching him leave. He reasons he might just try and question the client by himself, he is a detective too after all. 

*

Unfortunately the light spatter of rain doesn’t hold and quickly turns into a downpour. Shawn is soaked by the time he parks out the front of the diner and not exactly thrilled to be turning up looking like a drowned rat. He gratefully steps into the warmth and runs a hand through his hair trying to shake out the rain. The diner is practically deserted so it’s easier than usual to spot Lassiter already waiting in a booth. Shawn grins when he reaches the table because Lassie had been making a crawly snake while he waited, which he quickly abandons when he sees Shawn slide into the seat opposite him.

“You rode your motorcycle?” Lassiter asks in surprise in lieu of greeting.

“How else would I have gotten here?”

Lassiter grimaces conceding his point. He looks way worse than when Shawn last saw him. In fact he looked like he’d just come from the morgue.

_Ah crap. This wasn’t a date; this was a work related commotion_

The crushing disappointment Shawn feels each time he is faced with rejection from Lassiter is slightly alarming. Was it possible he was into in Lassie more than he realized? For more than just sex? 

“I already ordered. I figured it would save time we don’t have and I don’t need you distractedly perusing the menu for forty-five minutes while I’m talking.”

“What?” Shawn splutters efficiently distracted from his train of thought. Perusing the menu was a sacred part of the diner experience!

“Relax Spencer, I just picked the most ridiculous thing on the menu and figured you’d be satisfied with it.”

Shawn has the feeling that he is unwittingly making heart eyes. “You got me the Fast and Fondue: Triple choc-chip pancake palooza?”

Lassiter nods and then busies himself by taking a large gulp of coffee that Shawn has a sneaking suspicion is still too hot to drink.

_Huh? Buying him food? Maybe this is a date._ Shawn thinks, he might as well take advantage of the situation while he can. Nothing stopped him before the dawning realization of his gross mushy feelings and nothing should stop him now. Dozenth time’s the charm right?

Once Lassiter has finished pretending he didn’t just burn the roof of his mouth on scalding hot coffee he fixes Shawn with a serious look.

“Listen Spencer-”

Shawn lightly puts a finger to his temple “I’m sensing that our charm challenged friend Ruddy is no longer with us. He’s passed into the spirit realm.”

Lassiter freezes, his face shifting from disbelief to anger and then finally resigned exasperation.

“Why do you have to do this every time?” Lassiter complains, leaning back slightly so the waitress can set their food down. Shawn is too distracted to answer; Lassie has ordered them the same thing. The ridiculously decadent plate of pancakes looks twice as outrageous on Lassiter’s plate. It’s so cute that Shawn has to severely tamp down on the urge to tease him about it.

But he also can’t deny his interest is piqued, what is so important that Lassiter has to lure him on a non-date to tell him. Especially since up until now he’s been just as reluctant as usual to let Shawn in on this case.

“Ok I’ll bite” Shawn says easing up on his psychic act; he punctuates his sentence by stabbing a large chunk of pancake onto his fork and shoving it in his mouth. He can’t help the moan that escapes his mouth when he swallows because it tastes incredible. “What’s got your knickers in a twist?”

Lassiter flushes “My knickers are not in- never mind. Schmitt didn’t just _die_ , he dropped dead in a locked cell, surrounded by police officers.”

“Intriguing,” Shawn agrees. He picks up a large strawberry and swipes it through the chocolate sauce on his plate. Lassiter frowns at him but there is no heat in it, in fact he looks…concerned?

“Yeah I can see it’s really troubling you” Lassiter quips picking up a fork and pushing his own food around.

“Well Ruddy wasn’t exactly the cuddliest care bare on the shelf,” Shawn reasons

Lassiter lets out a bark of laughter in response that freezes Shawn in his tracks and sparks a fuzzy satisfied feeling in his chest. Holy shit, did he just make Lassiter laugh? Shawn needs to bottle this exact moment so he can figure out how to do it again later.

“Apparently that doesn’t matter” Lassiter says still with a slight grin on his face. It fades with his next words “Vic called the FBI. They’re coming in tomorrow morning to conduct an investigation.”

Shawn scoffs. “We don’t need those guys. They’ll just mess everything up. What does the Chief need the FBI for? She has me.”

As much as Lassiter looks like he wants to comment on that last bit he ignores it

“Spencer I was down in the morgue, the results aren’t conclusive but it looks like Schmitt was poisoned. The first thing the FBI is going to do with that information is come down hard on everyone that interacted with him in the hours before his death.”

“Including me” Shawn surmises forcing his voice to stay light; he really, _really_ does not need this complication. Hell, he hadn’t even wanted to step foot in that interrogation room in the first place.

“All of us” Lassiter says hesitantly “…but you’re probably going to look the most suspicious. You work outside of the department”

Shawn grimaces down at his food; he wishes people would stop trying to arrest him for crimes he is trying to solve. He gives Lassiter a speculative look.

“Why are you telling me all this? I mean this seems like the kind of thing you would have _loved_ to spring on me years ago. Arrest the psychic was your favorite party trick.”

The question appears to make Lassiter uncomfortable, he shovels pancake into his mouth to avoid answering for a few minutes. When he speaks again his voice is gruff.

“Any idiot with half a brain cell knows you’re not a murderer Spencer. You helped dig me out of trouble on that Drimmer case. I’m just returning the favor.”

Lassiter’s admission makes Shawn feel warm inside. The crux of the sentiment was clear. _Lassie was doing this because he cared about him._ Suddenly all the other crap they’d been peddling at each other over the last few days felt unimportant. This feeling was solid and unshakable. Lassiter had kissed him and Lassiter cared about him. Everything else was just background noise. 

“Thanks Lassie” Shawn says trying to pour as much sincerity as he can into the words. Lassiter’s ears go pink.

“I’m just doing my job,” Lassiter replies. Shawn isn’t going to let it go that easily.

“No you’re not” he disagrees. Lassiter opens his mouth to argue but Shawn isn’t finished “And I am”

“You’re what?” Lassiter looks confused

“Serious Lass. I think I’m serious about this” He reaches across the table and wraps his fingers around Lassiter’s wrist. The man has his coffee cup in a death grip. But it’s Shawn’s turn to feel the rapid flutter of Lassie’s pulse under his fingers. It’s reassuring. Shawn pries Lassiter’s hand away from the chipped mug and is relieved when Lassie doesn’t fight the action. He laces their hands together. He tries to let it say everything he hasn’t figured out how to articulate. He thinks if he speaks now he’ll ruin it. Lassiter’s hands are warm and calloused.

Lassiter looks down at their joined hands and back up at Shawn like he’s playing an intense game of catch-up. Sudden understanding crosses his face. His expression is apprehensive but also hopeful.

“Spencer” he begins in a cracked voice

“Shawn” Shawn prompts with a wry smile

“Shawn” Lassiter tests the word out “I’m not interested in being toyed with.”

“That makes two of us,” Shawn agrees squeezing his hand.

Lassiter looks thoughtful if not a touch offended by the implication “I wouldn’t do that to you”

“Well good” Shawn says, “Because I have feelings, just like regular folk. And I don’t think my faithful ol’ heart could survive you” Shawn grins, he means the words to be teasing but they seem to land heavier then he wants them too. There’s an uncomfortable truth in them. Lassiter is squeezing his hand back now, almost painfully.

“I don’t plan on breaking anything”

_Holy shit._ Even though Shawn can still hear the rain hammering, still see it pelting against the window, the tiny corner booth feels incredibly warm. Shawn feels warm. He doesn’t think the answer to the question he’s about to ask has mattered more in his entire life. He’s almost afraid to ask

“Lassie?”

“Mm?”

“Wanna go back to my place?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are we getting any closer to solving this case? Is Shawn finally getting laid? Tune in next time to find out!


	8. I Know, You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shawn and Lassie work it out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy it's been a long time since the last update! I can't tell you how relieved I am to finally have this out!

Gus is regretting his third cup of chamomile tea.

It turns out Rudolph Schmidt Senior holds a lot of grudges against a lot of people, and Gus had been listening to those grudges in extreme detail for two hours now.

They had just started on Schmidt's gripe on Ruddy’s ex girlfriend. He had disliked her immensely he says, in fact he seemed to hate her whole family.

“And don’t get me started on the girl’s parents.” Schmidt sneers before he indeed starts on them.

Gus politely sips his tea as he listens, pen and paper poised in his lap because he feels it gives him a more professional air.

“-Would have made terrible in-laws, far too lofty for their own good. And that Walter, always thinking my son was beneath his daughter. Is that any attitude for a man who only works in the _ARPNS_ Agency to have? He couldn’t afford to lick my boots and he thinks _we_ are beneath _him_.”

Gus freezes with his drink halfway to his lips.

“Where did you say Emily’s father works?”

“In the ARPNS, the American Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency”

Holy shit. Gus might have actually done it. He might have solved the case.

*

Shawn lives in a dry cleaner. That is hardly a blip on Lassiter’s weird radar anymore. The inside matches what Lassiter thinks it might be like to get a glimpse at the inside of Shawn’s brain. It was fast, colourful, ridiculous and filled with a collection of things Lassiter wasn’t sure whether to call bizarre or impressive.

The space quickly opens up into a living room with a couch, a television and a plethora of vintage movie posters adorning the walls. Lassiter’s eyes go straight to _The_ _Big Country_ Western poster framed in the corner. He points at it eagerly and beams, turning to address Shawn as he does so.

“I love that movie, you didn’t tell me you had that.”

Shawn is fumbling with his keys at the front door but he glances up at the sound of Lassie’s excitement.

“What? Oh yeah, I had a job at a movie theatre for a few months and they were cleaning out a bunch of their really old stuff. I think it’s signed by _Gregory Peck_ ”

_“What?!”_ Lassiter demands, eyes widening as he steps closer to the poster. Sure enough there is _Gregory Peck’s_ telltale scrawl in the corner. Lassiter lifts his hand up to touch it but hesitates not wanting to put smudgy fingerprints on the glass. 

“You got this for free?” Lassiter asks incredulously

“Sure” Shawn’s voice is a lot closer now and Lassiter realizes he’s come to stand by his shoulder. “The boss loved me cause I sold so much popcorn, I didn’t tell him it was because Gus came over every day to buy out the snack bar.”

Lassiter shifts, and glances at him questioningly

“He was trying to impress the girl who worked at the ticket booth so he was there a lot”

Shawn shivers as he talks and Lassiter realizes he’s soaked with rainwater again. Lassiter had offered to drive him back in the car but Shawn had stubbornly refused to leave his motorcycle in the parking lot overnight after what happened last time.

His brown jacket is streaming with water and the plain black t-shirt he has on underneath it is clinging to his skin. Lassiter’s eyes freeze there, suddenly remembering the glaring implications of Shawn’s invitation home. Lassiter must have been staring a little more intensely at the wet shirt than he realized because Shawn followed his gaze and frowned down at his clothes.

“Right” Shawn mutters. Was Lassiter imagining the flustered edge his voice? “I’ll just go change. Be back faster than you can name either Ashley Simpson album.”

Shawn isn’t looking at him and Shawn is stepping away.

The action eases something in Lassiter he hadn’t realized was still disquieting him. He catches the hem of Shawn’s wet shirt between his fingers and tugs him forward gently.

“Spencer,” he smiles “wait.”

Shawn doesn’t have time to look anything more than mildly startled before Lassiter slides one hand against his neck, curling his fingers against damp skin and capturing his lips an enthusiastic kiss. He tries to make it as reassuring as possible, for both their sakes. He rests his other hand against Shawn’s hip and twines his fingers through the belt loop of Shawn’s jeans, pulling them flush against each other. Shawn shivers again and this time Lassiter can feel the Goosebumps racing along Shawn’s cold skin.

“ _Right, ok!_ ” Shawn says when they break apart, he sounds breathless like he’s desperately scrambling to keep hold of his bravado, but Lassiter notices that his posture loosens ever so slightly. A qualm has been resolved. “That was um, wow. I am so on board with this,” he gestures rapidly in between them, his hand landing with a solid thwap against Lassiter’s chest. “I’m like a whole other level of eager. But, seriously these clothes feel like I’m wearing a second skin, its gross and I’m going to be off my game if I don’t change. I am _no_ t about to screw this up with sub-par game.”

Lassiter lets him go with a wry smile.

“Make yourself comfortable” Shawn calls over his shoulder as he heads into the small bedroom at the back of the flat. “And don’t go anywhere!”

Lassiter perches hesitantly on the red sofa and looks around. There are a few framed pictures on a small end table shaped like a novelty football. A picture of Shawn and Gus pressed cheek-to-cheek and grinning goofily is front and center.

There are other pictures of Shawn that Lassiter has never seen before. Shawn is younger, maybe early twenties standing next to someone Lassiter recognises after a minute as Madeline Spencer. They are leaning against the counter of an unfamiliar kitchen and the smile Shawn gives the camera here is smaller but softer, more relaxed. The posture and expression is mirrored almost exactly in Madeline and Lassiter suddenly realises how alike they seem. 

He remembers the psychiatrist session he had with Madeline, and _god_ it was two or three years ago now but he still remembers. She had slipped through his defenses so easily.

And he remembers the words she used.

_Eidetic memory_ he muses as he sinks back onto the sofa, feeling like he’s beginning to pull on a very important thread. Before he can begin to untangle it he is distracted by the return of Shawn.

Lassiter doesn’t know what he had expected but Shawn returns in loose dark cotton pants and a green Apple-bees t-shirt. His hair is hastily towel dried and messy. When he steps closer Lassiter can catch the subtle hint of cologne.

In any instances where Lassiter has imagined succumbing to his desire for Shawn, he had never imagined this.

In his head Shawn was always manipulative and seductive, someone to want but also someone to be wary of.

This Shawn was sweet, attentive, and nervous and felt entirely more real. Lassiter had no idea what he had always been so scared of.

Shawn sits down on the sofa, turns to him and crosses his legs childishly.

“A couple of rules” he says, holding up his hand indicating that Lassiter should not interrupt “At no point in the deep throes of passion am I to hear the word _Spencer_ come out of your mouth. If we’re doing this, it’s Shawn ok? Say it with me, _Shawwwn_ ” Shawn exaggerates the word slowly.

Lassiter rolls his eyes. “I think I can manage,” he replies and then adds, “But if we’re bringing this up, you know you can use my first name too.”

Shawn laughs. “Nice try Lass!”

“I’m serious. Why not? If I’m using your name why can’t you use mine?” Lassiter frowns, pouts might be a better word but he’d rather not describe it that way.

“Ok first of all _technically_ Lassie isn’t your last name, it’s a nickname already dripping with affectionate subtext. _Spencer-”_ He makes his voice slightly lower and more sarcastic “is not a nickname. Not to mention it reminds me of my dad! That is the opposite of what you want to be thinking about in the middle of good sex.”

Lassiter grimaces conceding the point with a look of horror “god! Ok! No last names.”

“That’s the spirit” Shawn agrees and then leans in slightly with a playful grin, presumably to resume kissing “now where were we?”

Lassiter places a hand gently on his chest, halting the action. “I think there’s still a few things we need to talk about”

Shawn juts his lower lip in over exaggerated disappointment but concedes the point. “Wanna flip for it?” He says teasingly “or do you have a preference?”

“Whatever you’re more comfortable with,” Lassiter answers seriously, gauging Shawn’s reaction for any hint of doubt.

Shawn runs his hands down the lapels of Lassiter’s suit jacket and gives him a mischievous look “I’m pretty flexible Lass” he then gives Lassiter a considering look “but if you’re letting me choose then I guess I’m choosing the bottom bunk. That’s where all my fantasies start anyway.”

Lassiter is torn between telling Shawn off for being childish and fighting the way his face starts to grow warm. Shawn has had _fantasies._ He clears his throat.

“Right.” He mutters “Ok”

Shawn touches him lightly, brushing his fingers against Lassiter’s jaw.

“Relax Lassie, it’s not like we're submitting a performance review.” He slides his hand up so it rests at the back of Lassiter’s neck and entwines his fingers in his hair. “I think we can feel the rest out from here, don’t you?” his hazel eyes are sparkling with mirth but also something hungrier, he leans in again.

This time Lassiter doesn’t resist, and they sink into the kiss. It quickly turns insistent and Shawn shifts so he’s sitting on Lassiter’s lap. They stay like that for a few minutes, trading lingering kisses. Lassiter sheds his suit jacket and Shawn leans in to nip at his neck, his fingers fumbling with Lassiter’s shirt buttons. Lassiter groans. It shouldn’t already feel this good. He tries to cast his mind back to the last time he’s gotten laid and it doesn’t bode well for him that he can’t remember. But he’s also determined not to embarrass himself. He has _stamina_ damn it.

Shawn tries to push Lassiter’s shirt off his shoulders but quickly realizes that it isn’t going to happen easily. He turns a quizzical eye on Lassiter’s brown leather holsters and Lassiter is secretly relieved to have the reprieve and catch his breath.

“How the hell do you get these off,” Shawn is obviously frustrated. The expression pulls a laugh out of Lassiter. He takes pity and slips the holsters off himself noting the way Shawn watches him carefully as if trying to memorize the action. The intensity of his gaze sends a thrill down his spine.

Shawn stands abruptly; using the grip he had on Lassiter’s tie to beckon him forward. His face is set in determination. “Bedroom” he insists.

The bedroom is small, with a comfortable double bed in the middle; clean in a way that suggests Shawn has just haphazardly shoved things in random corners to make space on the floor.

They stumble in, somewhere on the way Lassiter resumes the kissing uncaring of whether it makes Shawn’s navigational task more difficult. Finally the back of Shawn’s legs hit the edge of the mattress and he falls backwards onto it. Lassiter crawls forward and over, pressing him onto the bed.

Lassiter remembers the feeling he had when he kissed Shawn in his kitchen. How _good_ it felt to have Shawn underneath him. This was like that but a thousand times better.

Shawn was receptive to everything he did. Lassiter pins his wrists above his head with one hand, flexing his fingers slightly, it’s a teasing gesture. He kisses down Shawn’s throat. Shawn doesn’t protest and judging by the pleased noises he is making he doesn’t seem opposed to his position. Lassiter runs his other hand across Shawn’s abdomen and up his shirt, pausing to roll a nipple between his fingers and swallowing Shawn’s pleased gasp with his mouth when he does.

The way Shawn is moving against him, Lassiter thinks that if he stayed this way forever he would probably die happy. But Shawn has other ideas. He tries to move his hands and Lassiter eases his grip. Shawn uses this newfound freedom to undo the buckle of Lassiter’s pants belt.

Lassiter shifts so his hands are framed either side of Shawn’s head and closes his eyes when he feels hands slip into his pants. He’s so caught up in the moment he’s surprised to realize how hard he is already. He groans. Shawn’s hands are quick and clever just like the rest of him. The drag feels good. He catches his breath and opens his eyes to see Shawn looking up at him with that dissecting gaze again; it lays his every expression bare. It’s the way Lassiter sometimes catches him looking at a crime scene.

_Hell_ if that thought doesn’t turn him on. He’ll analyze the implications of _that_ later. Right now he is too preoccupied with the way his stomach begins to tighten in anticipation.

“Wait” Lassiter groans. Shawn stills long enough for Lassiter to roll off him. Seriously this lack of control is disconcerting. He needs to even the playing field. 

*

By the time they’ve shed the rest of their clothes Lassiter has made it _clear_ that he’s not going to be outdone. It isn’t long before Shawn is frantically tossing him the bottle of lube from his bedside draw. He pours a generous amount of it onto fingers and he’s far gone enough that he can’t find a flying fuck to give about it being obnoxiously fruit flavoured. He’ll probably have something to say about it in the morning though.

He lowers his head to take Shawn in his mouth again. One hand is pressed into Shawn’s hip the other is beginning to work Shawn open.

“Always knew you’d have an oral fixation” Shawn says propped up on his elbows, eyes glassy, cheeks flushed, breathless. 

Lassiter is so fixated on his task he almost doesn’t register the words but then he does. Lassiter takes a moment, he swipes his tongue along the underside of Shawn’s dick, teases the tip for a second and then lets go all together to blow cool air against heated skin and smirk when it makes Shawn’s breath hitch in protest. Impossible for Spencer to be blasé about anything now. 

“Thought about it a lot have you?” He remarks smugly before simultaneously doing something clever with his fingers and sinful with his tongue. 

“All- _mmh_ \- all- the time” 

The admission spikes Lassiter interest but he slows down the movement of his mouth and makes sure to ever so lightly graze a sensitive spot with his teeth before pulling back entirely. Shawn’s hips jerk up in protest but Lassiter has his free hand firmly on his hip. _“Really?”_

Shawn looks momentarily upset that Lassiter has slowed the pace before he understands what he’s fishing for “Yeah” his voice is low and breathy “always thought there were much _bigger_ and _better_ things you could focusing all that dedication on, _way_ better payoff than those toothpicks you always keep in your desk draw- _fuck!_ ” 

Lassiter angled his fingers and enjoyed the way Shawn’s voice hitched when he spoke.

“You know sometimes I’d imagine you all tense and worked up about something in the file room. _Ah_ \- getting all agitated over some discrepancy in a case file and – _and_ … _Jesus Lassie!_ “

Lassiter can tell Shawn is having trouble keeping track of his own tangent.

“-You’d _mmh_ just _need_ something to keep your mouth busy, something to release all that _ah_ tension. I’d come in and you’d just pin me to the wall and drop to your knees and-“ 

Because Lassiter is mercilessly cruel he stops what he’s doing to interrupt Shawn’s increasingly needy rambling. “That’s stupid” Lassiter informs him ignoring the moan of protest “I’d never go down in the file room.” 

“This is my fantasy” Shawn scoffs indignantly. 

“Well it’s terrible” 

“That’s very sexy of you to say.” Shawn replies sarcastically

Lassiter has creased his attentions so he isn’t exactly sure which as Shawn more worked up. He traces feather light circles across Shawn’s abdomen and the teasing quickly has the man squirming again.

“How about I _show_ you what we’d do in the files room instead” Lassiter smirks his voice low and rough. It seems Shawn is very enthusiastic about the idea because in response he drags Lassiter back up the bed and kisses him senseless.

“ _Fuck”_ Shawn hisses through a ragged breath, Lassiter knows he’s managed to find that magic fucking spot in record time, in fact he feels rather smug about it. He rocks his hips forward again at the same angle and is rewarded with a sound that is practically a whine.

He wants to hold that over Shawn and make it last but the hazy pleasure the night brings them is making it harder and harder to form any useful coherent thoughts. Shawn is so pliant and willing and he moves against Lassiter like he had something to prove. The pleasure curls around them with every thrust and every action seems to leave Lassiter hungrier than the one before it. He knows when this night is over he’s going to spend a little bit of every day that comes after it starving for what he has underneath him right now.

The way they roll off each other in soft light of pre-dawn feels like breaking the surface of the ocean after spending too long under water. The air is cool against sweaty skin. Lassiter doesn’t think he can ever move again, he is boneless and slightly dizzy and so fucking content that if he were physically capable he probably would have started purring

“That was…” Shawn mumbles as if struggling to form the words

“Yeah” Lassiter agrees. He is so sluggish and relaxed that he cant be bothered the school the lazy grin that stretches across his face.

If he were even vaguely capable of having sensible thoughts in that moment he would probably have the niggling feeling that he was forgetting something important. In this exhausted bubble of bliss it’s hard to do anything other than fall into a happy dreamless sleep.

*

Shawn shoots bolt upright in bed when he hears noises in his kitchen. He glances down. Lassiter is still in bed next to him, in a dead sleep. Shawn takes a minute to marvel at Lassiter’s guileless expression as he blearily gathers his wits. He peers at his phone it’s 7 in the fucking morning. They can’t have been asleep for more than two hours.

The passive aggressive slam of a kitchen cupboard redraws Shawn’s attention. Gus. It has to be Gus. And Gus only comes over this early if Shawn has done something to piss him off, or he’s in trouble or both. Shawn is sore and spent but he tries to slip out of bed as quietly as possible. The last thing he needs right now is Lassiter to wake up.

Clothed and mostly cognizant Shawn stumbles out to where Gus is sitting on the sofa and pouring the rest of his lucky charms into a bowl. They both glare at each other. 

“You didn’t call” Gus says

“Is that the last of my cereal?”

Gus scoops a large spoonful of cereal into his mouth, looking unapologetic.

Shawn grimaces. He runs a hand through his hair that he quickly realizes is a birds nest and pads over to boil himself some coffee. He wont handle anything Gus has to say right now uncaffinated. Caffeine in hand Shawn curls into the couch next to Gus who has silently devoured his cereal in a weird and unsettling act of revenge.

“Ok!” Shawn caves, Gus’s unmoving performance was driving him crazy “I’m sorry I didn’t call you…I was busy-”

“Making bad decisions about your sex life I know!” Gus scoffs. Shawn is about to protest before he remembers Lassiter’s car is still parked outside. Snippets of last night play through his mind.

“From where I’m sitting they were very, very good decisions” he grins but Gus definitely looks pissed.

“Don’t,” he implores, “I like to keep myself in the dark about whom you take to bed as much as possible.”

“Ok what is this? Do you have a break in the case?”

“I don’t know maybe you should ask your new boyfriend”

He’s not my-” Shawn frowns uncertainly “wait actually he might be” but he had caught the look in Gus’s eye, his poker face was slipping.

“I solved the case!” Gus admits finally like a kid waving around free candy he’d just stumbled into.

“What?” Shawn demands “How!”

“We need to get over to Emily's. I think I know what poison she administered!”

“Gus I haven’t said this in a while but you’re a funky little pharmaceutical sales genius, I’ll go get dressed.”

“I know” Gus says smugly “And hurry up.”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head, we’ll be on the road licitly split.” Shawn downs the coffee like he might a shot of tequila and slams the cup on the table.

Gus looks placated by the action and settles back into the couch to scrape his spoon obnoxiously against his bowl, making sure no lucky charm goes uneaten.

“Breakfast crepes on the way though right?” Shawn asks as he pads his way back over to the bedroom.

“I'm impatient not insane” Gus quips back.

The bedroom is still dimly lit but getting lighter by the minute, the bed is rumpled in a way that looks so inviting Shawn is almost tempted to crawl right back in. Lassie still hasn’t woken up; he has the left side of his face smushed against Shawn's pillow indicating he’s rolled over onto the right side after Shawn got up.

Shawn really, really isn’t interested in waking him. He wants to leave Lassie right where he is in that warm uncomplicated little bubble. And he'd especially rather not burst it on less than two hours sleep.

As a result Shawn is tiptoeing around his own bedroom at a painstaking pace, attempting to scrounge up clothes without doing anything that could wake Lassiter from his dreamy slumber. He’s doing pretty well, he’s managed to slip on pants and a shirt, two mismatched socks and is in the process of tugging a sneaker out from under the bed when all the effort goes out the window.

Lassie jolts awake without warning, a strangled gasp on his lips. He's scrambling out of bed before he draws his next breath. Shawn freezes from his spot on the floor and as a result Lassie almost trips over him. They both swear, Lassiter stumbles, catches himself and blearily turns on the light switch. He looks rumpled, pale and a little wild around the eyes. He finally spots Shawn on the floor with his arm under the bed. He doesn't bother asking what the hell he was doing there.

“What time is it?” Lassie asks instead in a scratchy voice, scraping a hand over his face as his eyes adjust to the shift in light.

Shawn looks at his wrist remembers he’s not wearing a watch and then flits his memory back to the blinking little numbers on the kitchen microwave.

“7:15” he answers. He leans back against the base of the bed frame and tilts his chin up appropriating the fact that Lassie had jumped out of bed completely naked. Lassiter seems to realize that fact as soon Shawn's eyes begin to rove.

This prompts the man to start looking around the room for his own shirt. He finds it hung over a Charlie Brown lamp and shrugs it on. “We have to go,” he says mis-buttoning his shirt in his agitation.

Finally yanking free his uncooperative sneaker Shawn sits on the edge of the mattress and ties his laces, far more leisurely.

“Where are we going?” he asks casually

Lassiter looks at him like he has lost his mind, which isn’t saying much coming from a man who hasn’t yet noticed his shirt is inside out.

“To the station” Lassiter says slowly like Shawn might just be fucking with him. When Shawn says nothing his voice grows increasingly agitated “to talk to the FBI!”

Understanding settles on Shawn’s face “Oh yeah right. Totally gonna go talk to those guys.”

Lassiter pauses finally seeming to fully wake up. He studies Shawn's face carefully and obviously doesn't like the faux innocence he sees there. He abandons the tie he is trying to thread through his shirt collar and comes to sit next to Shawn on the edge of the bed.

“FBI summons aren't optional Shawn, not turning up puts you in deep shit. It makes you look guilty.” He fixes Shawn with a potent cop stare, brimming with strict concern. And for the first time in a very, very long time there is a part of Shawn's brain that contemplates heeding it.

_Probably just all the sex endorphins from last night messing me up_ Shawn thinks off handedly.

The mushy feeling is making Shawn uncomfortable so he makes sure to pat Lassiter lightly on the cheek, half reassuring and half condescending just so he can wipe the look off Lassie's face. “It’s a good thing I'm not guilty then” he retorts breezily.

Lassiter looks disappointed but there's ghost of a smile fighting its way through. Endorphins are probably messing up his head too. Shawn decides to take advantage of the mutual chemically induced insanity by leaning forward and pressing his lips against Lassiter's.

He'd rather not make any promises he isn't sure he'll be able to keep and initiating a non-verbal activity is a good way to do that. It still sends a thrill through him at how easily Lassiter accepts his advance, how he relaxes into the touch, how he runs his tongue along Shawn's bottom lip to deepen it and his thumb comes up to brush against Shawn's jaw affectionately, how when they pull back it leaves a small fuzzy glow in Shawn's chest.

As if that were his cue Gus comes blindly crashing into the bedroom, his right hand clapped over his eyes. It was admittedly a wise move; Lassie still wasn't wearing any pants.

“Shawn what’s taking you so long!”

Lassiter turns bright red and yanks blankets into his lap.

“What the hell Guster?” he snaps his murderous glare undercut by embarrassment.

Gus peaks through his fingers sees everyone is mostly covered and drops his hand. “All due respect Lassiter but I don’t have the emotional capacity to deal with your half naked presence in my best friend's room right now.” He says looking over Lassiter's shoulder instead of meeting his eyes. “Shawn we have a case to solve”

Lassiter opens his mouth, a stormy look on his face.

Sensing trouble Shawn jumps to intercept the situation. He isn't exactly sure what the situation _is_ but he’s sure he needs to intercept it. He moves in between them and throws Lassie his pants. Lassiter quickly slides them on but the task doesn’t stop him from simultaneously reprimanding Gus.

“Spencer isn’t going anywhere but the police station” Lassiter says in his firm, _I’m in charge_ voice. Again it’s undercut by his disheveled appearance and his still clear mortification on having Gus unexpectedly walk in.

“No. He's coming with me. I solved-”

Shawn is already trying to coax Gus into moving out of the room so he’s in a perfect position to stamp down hard on Gus’s foot to get him to shut up.

Gus winces, tries to stifle a grunt of pain and huffs “I mean Shawn had a _vision_ that we really need to check out.”

“A vision.” Lassiter repeats. He has successfully buckled his pants and is standing up and fixing Gus with an unimpressed stare. “And when did Spencer have this vision hm?” Lassiter arches an eyebrow sardonically and waits for Gus’s answer.

_Great_ Shawn thinks he's already been demoted back to _Spencer_. He hadn't even got to enjoy first name privileges for a full 24 hours.

After a few seconds of silence Gus opens his mouth to speak but Lassiter has already cut him off “Was it last night at the pancake house? Or maybe this morning when he was passed out and drooling into his pillow-”

“This morning” Gus interrupts in an equally brusque voice. “Over coffee on the sofa. Which he takes black before breakfast and with cream after ten not that you would know.” Gus’ response takes a slightly awkward turn when his _best friend_ insecurity almost gets the better of him. He turns to Shawn, clearly annoyed that he hasn’t jumped in to corroborate the story yet.

The problem is Lassie is also looking at him, a look he's never worn so plainly or genuinely before _please for once cut the crap._

And the weird thing is that Shawn wants to, almost opens his mouth to do so but the thought fills him with so much white hot panic that its impossible to get the words out.

“Right” Shawn croaks “The psychic veil is known to be at its most talkative at exactly eleven minutes passed any hour. Lots of importance game changing information has been revealed to me at exactly 11 minutes past the hour.”

Lassiter's face wipes clean of any expression so fast it makes Shawn wince. He straightens his clothes and mechanically walks out of the room without another word to either of them.

Shawn's stomach drops. No, _no_. They can’t loose all that ground in a matter of minutes. He scrambles after Lassiter who is already trying to fish his car keys from the sofa cushions.

“Lassie wait” Shawn pleads. Lassiter turns back to face him, there is a kind of fire in his eyes that Shawn can’t place but it’s at odds with Lassiter’s steady voice.

“The FBI wants to speak with everyone working the interrogation yesterday. If you don't come down to the station and talk to them they will put an AVO out on you and I can’t stop that from happening”

He lets his words fall in such a way that Shawn knows he’s leaving room for him to back down, to fix the direction the conversation is going.

“Cant or wont” Shawn hears himself say instead.

Lassiter's expression hardens again. Every time Shawn thinks he can’t hit a deeper nerve he proves himself wrong. Watching Lassiter rapidly put his walls back up stings.

“ _Cant”_ Lassiter grits out “and wont!” he opens the door and slams it behind him, the absence is heavy.

He stares dumbly at the spot Lassie was standing unsure what to do

“Shawn” Gus’s voice startles him. Gus is leaning against the bedroom door.

“Yeah?” Shawn says hollowly not even bothering to turn around, his eyes still fixed on the spot Lassiter had been.

“I’m going to kick your ass if you don’t chase after Lassiter right now.

“What?”

“For my own peace of mind! You’ve been like a dog with a bone for weeks and it’s driving me insane.”

So Shawn dashes outside still not sure exactly what he’s doing but doing it at Gus’s insistence.

Lassiter is a few paces up the street impatiently looking both ways and about to cross the pedestrian crossing to reach his car parked on the other side of the road.

“Lassie wait!”

Lassie spots him, frowns unhappily but mercifully waits for Shawn to catch up. Shawn is embarrassingly breathless from the short sprint up the sidewalk but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it.

“What is it?” Lassiter says like Shawn is wasting precious minutes of his time. He’s put on aviators since stepping outside and it’s aggravating not being able to read the emotion in his eyes.

“I-” Shawn swallows and collects himself slightly and presses on “how do I fix it this?”

Lassiter’s lips thin, he doesn’t answer so Shawn keeps talking

“I want to fix this!”

“Spencer-” Lassiter sounds resigned 

“No! I don’t want to just go back to whatever it is we had before. So tell me how to make this nice.”

“No.”

The word is so unexpected Shawn’s jaw almost hits the floor before he finds his voice again.

“ _No_?” he says incredulously “What does that mean, no?”

Lassiter has his arms crossed defensively “it means no, clearly nothing _has_ changed so why should I spell it out for you?”

Every second of Lassiter’s resigned indifference is making Shawn a little crazy. He can’t believe it! After everything, Lassiter just what, _decides it isn’t worth it?_

Shawn laughs derisively because he doesn’t know what else to do, he knows it does a poor job of concealing the hurt he’s suddenly grappling with.

“Fuck you, nothing’s changed!” He isn’t going to let Lassiter do this. “Everything has changed, you’re out of your mind if you think I’m just going to let you pretend otherwise. How many times do I have to get it through that thick skull? I like you! And despite _everything_ , I care about you. And your not allowed to just-”

Lassiter whips his aviators off and steps into Shawn’s personal space, his own anger bubbling up “ _What_?” he demands, “What am I not _allowed_ to do Spencer?”

Oddly the heat in Lassiter’s voice calms Shawn down enough that his next words come out steadier. “You’re not allowed to walk away.” He retorts, “Like it doesn’t matter”

“Of course it matters” Lassiter snaps, “You’re the one always acting like it doesn’t”

“I chased you down the street!” Shawn argues, “How much more do you want me to want it to matter? From where I’m standing-”

Lassiter runs a hand through his hair. He looks extremely agitated but no amount of distress could have prepared Shawn for the next words out of Lassiter’s mouth.

“I know you’re not psychic”

Shawn rocks back on his heels. A derisive scoff is automatically curling his lip. He is so surprised that it steals the bite from his words.

“Are you kidding me?”

“No.” Lassiter grabs hold of Shawn’s shoulders, his nails digging hard into skin. He looks slightly unhinged. “ _I know”_

*

Lassiter doesn’t know why he’s chosen this moment. He feels almost feverish; He’s stepped off a ledge.

“Lassie-” Shawn begins in a condescending tone he’s used hundreds of times before. And Lassiter can’t stand it, not a second longer.

“Eidetic memory” He says and is satisfied to see Shawn’s mouth snap shut. “That’s how it works right? You inherited Madeline Spencer’s eidetic memory”

Colour drains from Shawn’s face. He opens his mouth but for once absolutely no sound comes out.

Lassiter can’t comprehend the fear he sees in Shawn’s eyes. He is almost offended by it, by the fact that Shawn still thinks Lassiter would do anything with the information. He shakes his head sharply.

“I’m not-“ Shawn attempts in a strained voice.

_Jesus Christ!_ Lassiter can’t believe he’s actually starting to feel guiltily. It settles low in his gut. But Shawn has misunderstood again.

“No” Lassiter insists, “I know _._ So you don’t _need_ to say anything”

“But I have-” Shawn tries again

“Don’t say anything!” Lassiter reiterates, “I’m not asking you to admit to anything.”

Irritation is creeping back into Shawn’s panicked tone “Then what are you asking?”

“Just-” Lassiter implores, “cut the crap. Stop pushing the psychic shtick on me when we both know its bullshit.” He takes a breath before he admits the next part “because the real Shawn is far more tolerable- far more _impressive_ than the fake one.”

He sees Shawn visibly relax but he still lets his hands fall away and holds his breath. He’s done it; he’s put all his cards on the table.

The silence is painstaking.

“Ok” Shawn’s voice is rough and a little wry “I think I can manage that”

And the thrill that goes through Lassiter is unlike anything he’s ever experienced before because those words out of Shawn’s mouth are as good as an admission that Lassiter is _right._

He can’t help the grin that’s suddenly plastered on his face. He scoops Shawn up in his arms and kisses him as hard as he can. Shawn looks totally stunned, like he’s won the lottery and been hit over the head with a mallet all at the same time.

The loud obnoxious sound of a car horn brings them back to reality.

Guster is idling in the street in his little blue car. “Alright” he calls “disaster averted, time to go.”

Shawn is still dazed and now Lassiter is more than a touch concerned about it.

“ _Shawn_ ” he says brushing a hand against Shawn cheek. The touch grounds the other man a little bit. “I’m going home, getting a change of clothes and going into the station. You’re going to meet me there ok? It’s going to be fine, we’re going to handle it. Promise you’ll meet me there.”

Shawn nods catches Lassiter’s hand with a warm one of his own and turns his head slightly to press a kiss against his palm. “I promise”

Lassiter’s face lights up again. He can’t resist leaning in for one more kiss.

“I’ll see you later” he says before crossing the street to his own car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say thank you so much to the people who have stuck around and read this. Every comment and kudo means the world to me. 
> 
> And I know this update has been a long time coming, I honestly did not mean for that to happen. 
> 
> The funny thing is this chapter was originally a lot longer but I decided right at the last second that it made more sense to split it up into two chapters. It was way less daunting to edit that way.
> 
> Hopefully what that also means is that the next update will be right around the corner.
> 
> One last note! I'd hazard a guess and say there is probably around two more chapters left in this story. The finish line is in sight guys!
> 
> Thanks again for reading! I'll see you soon.


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